Forgiveness and Community

At the Lifeway book store at Moody Bible Institute, I recently bought a book entitled Death by Church, by Mike Erre. Mike is a teaching pastor at Rock Harbor church.

There's a lot of quoteworthy material in the book, pertaining to various problems in the modern church. Here's a perceptive quote, from page 114, which I found particularly interesting:

Pastoral ministry has now been reduced to marketing and psychotherapy --- disciplines that both concentrate exclusively on the individual. The message of the gospel is treated the same way. The American gospel concerns itself solely with the inner, private world of people as they exist in relation to God. There is usually no talk of community, tradition or public accountability. (After all, who are you to stand between me and God?) Faith exists as a private exercise, a personal option, an individual choice.

The problem with the approach to ministry described in the preceding paragraph, is that such an approach does a poor job of resolving the myriad human problems which are relational in nature.

Ironically, the end result is that such an approach doesn't even work very well in terms of addressing problems concerned with individuals. The state of mind of an individual who has been harmed by the sins of others cannot be divorced from the larger context of the community in which that individual lives, if one wishes to accurately perceive the problems of that individual and the solutions to those problems.

I am thinking, in particular, of the way that many people define our obligations and relationships with one another in relation to the extremely important issue of forgiveness.

There are many Christians today who, based on the correct observation that God's love for mankind is unconditional, and based on erroneous interpretations of certain passages of scripture pertaining to forgiveness, have concluded that God's forgiveness of sinners is likewise unconditional, and that our forgiveness of others who have sinned against us should therefore also be unconditional.

This teaching (found in books such as Forgive and Forget by Lewis Smedes) contradicts the scriptures, which clearly teach that God's forgiveness of sinners is predicated on the willingness of such sinners to ask for forgiveness and to repent.

If forgiveness were unconditional, then defiant and unrepentant sinners would nevertheless go to heaven. There would be no hell. That's the gospel of wishful thinking (otherwise known as "universalism"), not the gospel of Jesus Christ which is found in the Bible.

From Forgiven to Forgiving, by Jay Adams, is a book which provides a welcome antidote to the fallacies advocated in such books. Here's a link to an interesting related blog post also written by that author.

In particular, some people seem to have missed the point with regard to the primary reason for forgiveness. They have taught that the primary function of forgiveness (or at least one of the primary functions) is to serve as "therapy" for the sake of the forgiver. (That's why I was reminded of this subject when reading the preceding quotation by Mike Erre.) In other words, people who teach this doctrine believe that the forgiver forgives for his or her own sake (e.g., to enable the forgiver to "find closure" and "get on with life"), not for the sake of the person being forgiven or for the sake of the relationship between the offender and the offended party.

On the face of it, that's nonsense. Tell me: Who is the primary beneficiary when God forgives a sinner? God? Or the sinner?

The answer is obvious: The sinner is the primary beneficiary. God needs no therapy. God is Lord of the universe.

I'm not denying that God's heart is broken (to put things in somewhat anthropomorphic and therefore inaccurate terms) when we sin against God. But there is a reason God's heart is broken by our sin, and the reason isn't that his feelings have been hurt. The reason is that God earnestly, even passionately desires intimate relationships with all of the people God has created. Sin makes such relationships impossible, because God is a holy God. Sin thwarts God's desire for fellowship with people. Therefore, God offers forgiveness, for the purpose of a restoration of the fellowship relationship between God and the forgiven sinner.

Notice that I said that God offers forgiveness to all sinners (which is within his power to do, without compromising his holiness, because of the atonement of Christ's sacrificial death on the cross). I didn't say that God grants forgiveness to all sinners.

It would be nonsensical to say that God had forgiven a person, but that God had sent that person to hell nevertheless. What would be the point of forgiveness if it did not alter one's eternal destiny in the slightest?

God is indeed an incredibly loving and merciful God, and he is willing to forgive us, if we will only call on the name of Jesus Christ and ask for forgiveness. But that "if" is all-important.

If we could be forgiven without repentance, where would be the incentive to repent? There would be none. The same principle is equally applicable to human relationships. Unconditional forgiveness has the effect, intentional or not, of encouraging people to continue in their self-centered patterns of behavior. Such forgiveness was correctly described as "cheap grace" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (and as "sloppy Agape" by others).

I have actually heard some Christians say that forgiveness is completely separate from the issue of reconciliation. They will tell you that one can forgive others, without the expectation that such forgiveness will result in reconciliation.

When one meditates on the fact that God's forgiveness of sinners is offered to us for the precise purpose of reconciling sinful man to a holy God, it boggles the mind to think that anyone would think that human forgiveness would be any different in that respect.

True reconciliation requires honesty, because the perpetuation of lies prevents the kind of emotional and spiritual intimacy which is the object of reconciliation. If one has to deceive one's self in order to believe that a level of trust has been restored in a particular relationship, then the so-called reconciliation is pointless.

Repentance does not offer any 100% guarantees (because even repentant people are fallible, and may yet sin again), but it does offer a foundation of understanding which makes eventual and total reconciliation possible. Without such a foundation, there is no logical reason for forgiveness.

It is an enormous disservice to Christians who have been harmed by other Christians or by others to essentially tell them to sweep all of the very real issues which hinder the process of reconcilliation under the rug and pretend that issues which have not been resolved have been resolved. Such false and irresponsible counsel constitutes an abdication of the moral responsibility which rests upon church leaders to hold Christians accountable for their actions. In the final analysis, it even constitutes an abdication of their responsibilities to offending parties, because failure to hold such people accountable hinders them from engaging in the acts which are necessary in order for them to experience the benefits of genuine forgiveness and reconciliation. The process of genuine spiritual and emotional growth is hindered when people are not held accountable for their actions.

In Mike Erre's book, he talks extensively about a "disparity between belief and behavior" which characterizes the lives of many professing Christians. That's easy to understand, when one considers the exceedingly harmful results of church practices based on a false understanding of forgiveness. Such a doctrine negates the possibility of the "public accountability" Erre talks about in his book.

True forgiveness which is offered to all, but which is actually granted only to those who meet the necessary condition of repentance, respects the needs of others in the community who might conceivably be hurt in the future by similarly hurtful acts. Unconditional forgiveness fails to respect those needs, inasmuch as it fails to uphold the common-sense principle that there is a connection between actions and consequences. Therefore, any definition of Christian discipleship which does not include the necessity of holding people accountable for their actions is a definition which is based on a failure to understand the idea that the kingdom of God has ramifications for communities, not just for self-centered individuals.

None of the aforementioned ideas negate the very real biblical responsibility of Christians to forgive others who sin against them and who then ask for forgiveness. The "seventy times seven" scripture still applies, because that scripture pertains to the infinite number of times we are required to forgive genuinely repentant people, not to the conditions under which people should be forgiven.

My Life is Like A Soapbox Derby Car

Lately, my life has reminded me of a soapbox derby racing car: Going downhill fast, and picking up more speed with each passing moment. To put things in less metaphorical terms, the hope that my life here on earth will substantially improve before I die seems to diminish with each passing day. Very few people seem to care very much. That includes most of my fellow Christians, notwithstanding all of their lofty talk about unity in the Spirit, loving one another and bearing one another's burdens.

Thank God for the promise of heaven.

Geocities and My Files

I recently heard that Yahoo would be closing Geocities, its free web hosting program. A visit to my Geocities account confirmed the rumor. They're no longer taking applicants for new web sites, but that isn't what worries me. A lot of my files have been stored there, and I've linked to those files with extensive links in this blog and elsewhere. I'm sincerely hoping that they continue to host the existing files at their current locations; otherwise, the links I've created on this blog and elsewhere (such as ArtisticChristians.com) will eventually become dead links. Potentially, that could cause previously nice web sites I've created to be considerably less attractive and useful.

Fixing the situation would probably involve a ton of work, because it would involve finding a new free web provider (preferably one which is as easy to use as Geocities was), uploading all of the files I'd need (after creating folders comparable to the Geocities folders) and then going through all of my blog posts and other web links in order to change the links so that they would go to the new URL addresses for those specific files.

The problem is compounded, in my case, by the fact that my own computer is down, and I'm mostly restricted to the computers I am able to reserve for free at the library. They have those computers set up so that one can't do any right clicking, which makes it impossible for me to perform certain functions such as downloading unprotected image files from my own websites in order to insure that I have all of the files I need. I do know that most of the files at Geocities, if not all of them, have been saved somewhere on CD-R discs, but figuring out where each and every file has been stored so that I could upload each file to a new web server would be a royal pain in the posterior.

As for Blogger.com, I shudder to think what would happen if they ever closed their blog hosting service. I'd lose all of these blog posts, unless I'd had time beforehand to laboriously go through and copy each and every article to some other format. Some folks who don't care for what I've written (or who couldn't care less about what I've written) would probably like that idea, or be indifferent to that idea. But even if no one else has benefited from this blog, it means something to me.

Talk About Truth in Advertising!

The other day, I was taking the bus on Division Street, and I happened to see a sign for a store (at 3251 W. Division) known as Pagan's Liguors.

Somehow, in light of the ungodliness which often accompanies the liquor industry and the consumption of that industry's products, I found myself thinking that the name was very appropriate.

Bad Advice (A Poem)

The following poem isn't intrinsically Christian, but it was inspired recently by some experiences I've had in various churches over the years:

-------------

BAD ADVICE
© Mark Pettigrew

"Don't rock the boat";
a piece of advice
typically offered
to make one think twice ---
Think about saying
what might cause offense,
even if what one says
makes perfect sense!

"Don't rock the boat;
let sleeping dogs lie."
Don't dare to ask,
when it isn't clear why.
Better to yield
to defeat and despair.
Better to act
like you really don't care.

"Don't rock the boat"
is what cowards say.
Problems would fester,
if they had their way.
Some boats need rocking,
whatever folks claim.
Truth's not negotiable.
Life's not a game.

-------------

Jesus was a boat rocker. He said things which made people uncomfortable, as had John the Baptist before him. Both of them were eventually killed on account of what they said. But they spoke the truth.

The same thing could be said about many noteworthy Christians over the years, such as Martin Luther and Martin Luther King.

Unfortunately, such courage and truthfulness is in short supply today among Christians who claim to be followers of Jesus.

Squinting At The Screen

This morning at around 2:30 or so, I was in the men's room down the hall on the 12th floor at the Lawson House YMCA where I live, when I began feeling sick. I was on the verge of vomiting. It had been my experience that it was not a good idea to wear one's eye glasses while vomiting into the toilet. So I took off the glasses and set them nearby on the window sill in the bathroom stall, intending to retrieve them when everything was taken care of.

Unfortunately, it was a particularly messy experience. (Believe me, you don't want the juicy details.) Of course, I completely cleaned up after myself, but in the process, I was distracted, and I subsequently left my glasses on the window sill instead of taking them to my room with me. I went back to sleep, not realizing that I had left my glasses in the men's room.

Six or seven hours later, I awoke. Then I looked for my glasses. I didn't find them. I thought about it for a few minutes, and I realized what had happened.

I went back to the men's room, hoping that no one had taken my glasses while I was sleeping, but someone had done so.

Later, I bumped into another man living on that floor, and I asked him if he had seen my glasses by any chance. He said that he'd seen them in that stall, and he'd thought about taking them, but he'd realized that someone might come looking for them, so he left them there. That confirmed that I was correct in thinking that I'd left my glasses there.

I went to the security desk next to the front door on the first floor, but they hadn't received glasses from anyone. Nor had anyone in the office on the second floor. So I guess that my only option is to put a sign on the front door leading to the 12th floor hallways, and hope that whoever took my glasses is an honest person who will return them to me when he knows the identity and room number of the owner of the glasses.

I can't really see why the man who took my glasses wouldn't return them to me once he knows who the glasses belong to. It seems highly unlikely that his prescription is identical to mine; and even if that were the case, it also seems unlikely that he'd want to be spotted wearing my glasses around Lawson House. So it seems likely that I'll get them back. But nothing is guaranteed, especially in a building containing a high percentage of residents who don't always think the way that normal people think.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here squinting at the computer screen. My prescription used to be fairly mild, and I could get by fairly easily without my glasses, but my need for glasses when reading has grown during the past decade.

When making PC reservations here at the library, one gets a little printout of the details (e.g., the computer number, the time, etc.) for each reservation. I actually had to ask a security guard to read my reservation receipt for me so that I'd know which computers I'd reserved for today. What a drag!

I'm able to see the lettering on this computer monitor well enough to type this blog post (thanks, in part, to my touch typing abilities, which aren't based entirely on sight), but things are a bit fuzzy in spite of the backlit screen. And printed materials with lightly printed type, small type, etc. can be even harder to read, especially in lighting which isn't quite bright enough.

I really can't afford a new pair of glasses right now. In fact, the old pair was free, thanks to a program operated by a local college of optometry. I've had that pair for almost two years now, so perhaps I can get a new pair soon through that program, if I don't get the lost glasses back from the man who took them. Otherwise, I will probably just buy some off the shelf reading glasses at Osco or Walgreens, and hope that they suffice for my most pressing needs, until I can afford to get some real prescription glasses again. Even reading glasses represent an expense I can't really afford right now, but they're a whole lot less expensive than prescription glasses, and also a lot less time-consuming (in terms of having to schedule an appointment weeks in advance, wait another week or more for the glasses, and so forth).

My father, who was an optometrist, used to handle all of my optometric needs when I was a kid, and he continued to do so a little longer even after I'd become a young adult. But he's been dead since 1999, and we'd been distant from one another (both geographically and emotionally) for quite some time before that. So it's been a long time since I was able to get my optometric needs met by my father. There are a lot of things I don't particularly miss about him, but that is one of the things I do miss. He was a very good optometrist, until he foolishly allowed excessive liquor consumption to put an end to his professional practice.

Loyalty, Disloyalty and Dissent

The May 11-18 issue of Newsweek has an essay and a book excerpt by Richard N. Haas, who worked in both Bush administrations. In the essay entitled "The Dilemma of Dissent," Haas acknowledges that dissent is sometimes seen as a sign of disloyalty by leaders, but he makes a case for the idea that that isn't necessarily the case.

Dissent has been hailed as noble and necessary by our leaders. None other than President Dwight Eisenhower said that Americans should "never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion." Fomer senator William J. Fulbright declared, "In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith."

He continues, on page 34:

Speaking truth to power is actually a form of loyalty. It is the best and at times only way to make sure that government (or any organization) lives up to its potential.

I agree; and I think that the aforementioned quotation would certainly be applicable to the local church (which would fall under the categorical heading of "any organization").

Pastors have a tendency to assume that criticisms of their policies or their actions are tantamount to attacks against them or their churches. But that's an unfair assumption to make, inasmuch such criticisms are sometimes motivated by a desire to see those churches and their pastors live up to their potential.

It's a shame that so many of our churches are led by egotistical pastors who act as if disagreement with them is synonymous with disagreement with God. There are exceptions, thankfully, but it seems to me on a purely subjective level (based on personal experiences) that such humble Christian leaders are getting harder and harder to find.

I remember one pastor saying the following from the pulpit, roughly 20 years ago (when I attended that pastor's church in southwest Missouri): "The church is not a democracy." That was his response to people who had the audacity to think that they ought to have a voice in church policies, in spite of the fact that they weren't part of that church's privileged "inner circle".

When he said that, I was tempted to reply, "No, but neither is it a dictatorship." I suspect (based on his leadership style) that if I had replied in that manner, he would have begged to differ.

Humility is an essential aspect of discipleship. How do such pastors expect to teach humility to others, if they do not lead by example?

Emotional Healing Doesn't Come Overnight

On March 30, according to an article in the NY Daily News as well as other news sources, a 23-year-old man from Milton, MA named Kerby Revelus stabbed his 17-year-old sister Samantha Revelus to death. Then he turned on his 5-year-old sister Bianca (whose birthday cake from her party the day before still sat on the kitchen table) and beheaded Bianca. The third sister, 9-year-old Sarafina, called the police, who shot Kerby and killed him before he could murder Sarafina.

(For you gun control advocates, it's noteworthy that all of this carnage occurred in spite of the fact that Kerby didn't have a gun at the time. When taking everyone's guns away fails to solve the problem of lethal violance, will we start taking people's kitchen knives away from them next? Hopefully, we'll eventually get a clue and start assigning the blame where it really belongs: The darkness of sinful human hearts, which is a problem as old as Cain and Abel.)

Today's RedEye reported another comparable incident, as did this MSNBC article. A 34-year-old father in Lakeland, FL (Troy Ryan Bellar) murdered two of his three sons, as well as his wife, and he tried unsuccessfully to murder his third son (13-year-old Nathan Bellar) before turning his rifle on himself and committing suicide.

In both of these cases, there was one surviving family member who barely escaped death the hands of a family member who murdered numerous other family members. Those survivors will have to live for a very long time with incredibly painful, traumatic memories.

Can Christ heal such painful memories? As a Christian, I have to say that he can, at least to the extent that Sarafina Revelus and Nathan Bellar will eventually be able to live reasonably productive lives, if they choose to do so. But that doesn't mean that such healing is likely to come overnight, or that it will come easily. Nor is it to say that those survivors will ever be completely free from dark memories in this life, barring complete and total amnesia. (And even then, they are likely to be reminded of the past in a variety of ways, such as searching for their own names on the web.)

Sadly, there are pastors and other Christian leaders in this country who, to put it mildly, need a reality check when it comes to incidents such as these, as well as other less extreme incidents which nevertheless are capable of creating issues which cannot be easily or quickly resolved merely by offering flippant, uncompassionate advice to the effect that such people should "get over it" and "move on with their lives". To insist that such people put on a deceptively happy face and pretend that all is well in their lives is to promote the kind of dishonesty which ought to be deemed repugnant by all Christians.

There's no question that Jesus offers emotional healing to such victims, but complete and total healing (sometimes described as "closure") may not come until we are safely in heaven, where such tragic events will be no more. Meanwhile, we Christians need to take our scriptural responsibilities to one another seriously. We need to bear one another's burdens. That includes allowing victims such as Sarafina Revelus and Nathan Bellar to talk about their pain, without judging them, even if listening to them makes us extremely uncomfortable.

That, after all, is what Jesus would do.

Ted Dekker: Not Your Typical Christian Writer

I've never read any books by Christian novelist Ted Dekker, yet, but I'm intrigued by what I've seen, and I'm hoping to check one or more of his books out of the library here, because he appears to be a writer who transcends the limitations of the stereotypical "Christian novel" in order to write pulse-quickening novels which would appeal even to unbelievers.

Here's a link to an interesting article about Ted from CNN. Maybe the fact that he isn't the typical Christian writer is due to his unusual upbringing, having been raised by missionaries in an area where cannibalism was still practiced.

Kindle Your Love for Reading

eBooks represent one of the hot new applications for digital technology.

Admittedly, it's unlikely that eBooks will ever completely replace paper books, unless it gets to the point that paper is such a precious commodity that such publishing becomes cost-prohibitive. Even so, eBooks offer some enormous advantages in comparison with printed books, especially with respect to the type of books which don't really require full-color printing.

In particular, a compact eBook reader such as the new Amazon Kindle 2 can enable one to carry a huge library wherever one goes, without straining one's back (and at a cost which can be much lower than the cost of buying the equivalent number of printed books. The Amazon web site says that the unit "holds over 1,500 books".

Just as an iPod enables people to carry audio libraries which previously would have occupied enough LP records to cause serious back strain when carrying them around (even without the requisite record player), the Kindle 2 does the same thing for books.

PDF formatting can be a good way to create eBooks which are intended for normal computer screens, but smaller machines such as the Kindle 2 really require their own formatting which enables text to wrap properly without the need for horizontal scrolling while reading. Here's a link to one company which can convert various formats such as PDF, Microsoft Word, etc. to Kindle format. (Fortunately, that isn't necessary for PDF files with the new Kindle DX. See notes at the end of this post for more information.)

While Kindle format is clearly best for text, in order to gain the benefits of that format in terms of searching for specific text and so forth, note that the machine also supports a wide variety of other formats "through conversion".

One situation in which eBooks are definitely superior to printed books is for books which must be updated quite frequently, in a manner which does not contribute unduly to the proliferation of discarded outdated printed copies in our nation's dumpsters and landfills. For instance, professional directories (in which the contact information and other details pertaining to companies and individuals listed therein are in a constant state of flux) are a great candidate for eBook publication. It's much easier (and more eco-friendly) to simply upload a revised copy to the web site and to make that file available for download than it is to publish new printed editions of such books.

Kindle isn't just for commercial eBooks, either. Here's a quote which is pertinent to personal documents:

Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you, eliminating the need to print. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address. You can set your unique email address on your Manage Your Kindle page. This allows you and your approved contacts to e-mail Word, PDF documents, and pictures wirelessly to your Kindle for a small per document fee--currently only 10¢ per document. Kindle supports wireless delivery of unprotected Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files.

You can email your PDFs wirelessly to your Kindle. Due to PDF's fixed layout format, some complex PDF files may not format correctly on your Kindle.

If you are not in a wireless area or would like to avoid the fee, you can send attachments to "name"@free.kindle.com to be converted and e-mailed to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account login. You can then transfer the document to your Kindle using your USB connection. For example, if your Kindle email address is Jay@Kindle.com, send your attachments to Jay@free.kindle.com.

Imagine how useful the Kindle 2 would be to travelers (such as missionaries or band members on the road) who would like to be able to carry their entire libraries with them in order to alleviate boredom or in order to have ready access to far more written materials than they could normally carry with them.

Imagine how useful the Kindle 2 would be to students, as an alternative to heavy, back-breaking textbooks.

Imagine how useful the text-to-speech capabilities would be for sight-impaired readers! Ditto for the ability to listen to audio books (MP3) from Audible.com and elsewhere. (For instance, ChristianAudio.com specializes in Christian audio books.)

UPDATE AS OF 5/10/2009: I just learned about a new product in Amazon's line of Kindle readers. It's called the Kindle DX. It's larger than the regular Kindle 2, at 10.4" x 7.2" x 0.38" (versus 8" x 5.3" x 0.36" for the Kindle 2), but the benefit is huge if one wishes to read native PDF files without having to do any scrolling, panning, zooming or reflowing, and without having to convert from PDF format to Kindle format.

The "auto-rotating screen" is also a cool feature, for viewing full-width maps, graphs, tables and Web pages.

Also, Kindle DX has 3.3GB of storage available for user content, which means that it can store about 3,500 books, newspapers, magazines and documents (more than twice as much data as the Kindle 2). Pretty amazing when you consider that it's about the size of a typical magazine.

Personally, though, I think that they should offer a version which has storage via a built-in slot for SDHC cards, which now go as high as 32GB. (Even Micro SD cards can store up to 16GB, based on some ads I've seen.) Oh, well. Nothing's perfect.

I'm inclined to think that it would be particularly beneficial for high schools and colleges to offer all (or at least most) of their text books in the form of Kindle files or PDF files which could be read on the Kindle 2 or Kindle DX. I remember when I was in school, lugging tons of books back and forth between classes. What a pain that was! Kindle DX would solve that problem, with the possible exception of books which were loaded with full-color illustrations which would suffer when converted to a monochromatic display.

It might be nice if other companies would come out with third-party accessories, such as a product which would let one mount the Kindle DX on the wall. (That could come in handy, for instance, if one was using the device to display one's cook book while cooking.) Or a device which would let one mount the Kindle DX on a camera tripod (for prolonged sessions of hands-free reading in areas where there are no desks or tables).

Margaret Sanger and Hillary Clinton

Here's a link to an article, written by a woman named Mona Charen. I don't fully agree with every single statement in the article, but I think that it's well worth reading, especially if you're one of the numerous people who have been blinded by the anti-life propaganda of Planned Parenthood (or, as some have called it, Planned Barrenhood).

Enclosure Links and Podcasting

Here's a link to a Help page with information pertaining to the process of turning Blogger.com blog posts into podcasts. That definitely seems to be something I'm going to want to do in the future.

If This Is Affluence ...

I just got three identical copies of an e-mail message containing the following message:

Hello,

You have been invited by Dale Smithey to join Affluence.org. Affluence.org is an exclusive community of affluent people dedicated to making life better for both themselves and others.

Hmmm, do you think Dale really knows me? Is he aware that I live in a single room at a YMCA in downtown Chicago, where I've lived since 1992? Does he know that I've been living on the verge of eviction from that small room for the past couple of years ever since losing my last long-term job? Does he know that I rely on "food stamps" (a/k/a my LINK card) just to be able to buy groceries?

If this is "affluence," I'd hate to see poverty. Maybe he was thinking of spiritual riches, but somehow, I doubt it.

Considering the current state of the economy, I'm inclined to think that Dale might do better to focus on a demographic group which is not rapidly shrinking in this country in terms of numbers.

Gigapixel Panoramas with Gigapan

Here's a link to a company which offers a very cool product (or rather, multiple products of the same type) designed to automate the process of producing multiple digital photos which can then be stitched together with special software in order to produce photo files which can be enlarged to enormous sizes. The Gigapan Epic (for point & shoot cameras) and Gigapan Epic 100 (for DSLR cameras) are robotic camera mounts which automatically move the camera from position to position and then take photos --- even thousands of photos! --- which are subsequently stitched together into a single high-resolution image.

Potentially, such a system could also be very useful for turning reasonably affordable DLSR cameras into repro cameras for producing giclee and photo reproductions from large paintings or even outdoor murals. To say nothing of landscape photos, city skylines, etc.

The Fall of Mankind

On Saturday, there's going to be an event here at the Harold Washington Library in connection with the Chicago Poetry Fest. If my schedule permits, I hope to come here and read a couple of my poems at an "open mic" event known as a "poetry slam" (in which each poet will be allotted three minutes to read his or her poems). Here's one of the poems I hope to read:

THE FALL OF MANKIND
© Mark William Pettigrew

You say that if there is a God, he must be harsh and cruel,
so anyone who’d follow such a God must be a fool.
I understand why you might think the way you clearly do,
but even so, I have some thoughts I’d like to share with you.

It’s true, the world we see today is not the way it should be.
If there had never been a Fall, that isn’t how it would be.
But long ago, a tempter came, and tried to ruin God’s plan.
When Eve rebelled and Adam sinned, it caused the death of Man.

The heart of God was broken by the thought of what they’d done.
Their death was just a token of the troubles they’d begun.
God could have washed his hands of us, destroying one and all,
but love’s not easily destroyed, not even by the Fall.

So through the years, the Lord reached out and made his presence known,
so those who chose to worship him could find their way back home.
Some people tried to follow God, and did to some degree.
But something more was needed. It was plain for all to see.

And then one night in Bethlehem, a miracle took place,
to bring the hope of joy and peace to all the human race.
God sent his son to walk the earth, proclaiming what was true,
and healing those who sought his help with faith in what he’d do.

And when the enemies of God got wind of what he’d done,
they plotted to destroy the one who said he was God’s son.
They nailed him to a wooden cross upon a barren hill,
attempting to destroy the one who’d done his Father’s will.

But love’s not easily destroyed, not even by the cross,
and resurrection power can restore a soul who’s lost.
Despite your hardened heart, he beckons you to hear his voice,
so open up your heart today and make the righteous choice.

He never said that life would be without its share of pain,
but those who choose the road of faith have everything to gain.
He’s waiting for your answer while he’s knocking at your door,
so let him be your master and find peace forever more.

*************************************************************************

Pretty bold, if I do say so myself, considering that I'll be reading for a secular crowd, some of whom are more likely to admire foul-mouthed poets such as Alan Ginsberg. But what's the point of preaching the gospel if one doesn't reach out to those who need to hear it?

I think that my favorite part is the repetition of the thematic idea that "love's not easily destroyed", tying Christ's work on the cross to the original Fall (which is appropriate, since the Bible describes Jesus as the "second Adam").

NOTE: To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.

Checking Multiple Domain Names

The following information is primarily of interest to web designers and others who are in the process of creating new web sites or who plan to do so in the future.

http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/21-podcast-hosting.htm has a lot of useful information pertaining to podcasting. While I was reading that tutorial, I came across this interesting tidbit of information:

I check web address availability using 000domains. I have to be honest. I don’t ever register domains through them, but I like their search tool because I can check the availability of several domain names all at once.

You might already have a few ideas of what you’d like your web address to be. Go to 000domains, type your web address ideas into the box, click “start searching” and it will tell you which are available.

Hmmm, that's very useful! That web site lets one check up to 50 domain names at once, for as many as 9 different domain name extensions.

I tend to check domain names via GoDaddy.com, which I use for registering actual domain names, but it would be an improvement on the GoDaddy site if they'd allow one to check multiple names at once, the way that the aforementioned web site does.

What would be even better would be to be able to upload an Excel spreadsheet with several hundred possible domain names and then download a revised version of that spreadsheet which would have information (in a separate column) pertaining to the availability of each listed name, with availability information about each of the different extensions (.net, .com, .info, etc.), and with a third column listing the date and time when availability was last checked. Better yet, one could subscribe to the list so that any time changes were made, a new version would be sent to one via e-mail with the most recent changes highlighted (rather than having to go to the GoDaddy.com site and manually check again on particular names in which one had an interest). Furthermore, for names which were unavailable in previous versions of the document but which had just become available, these would be flagged so that people could jump on them before anyone else got to those names; likewise, names which had previously been available and then become unavailable would be separately flagged so that one knew which names had recently become unavailable.

USB Microphones and Mic Preamps

If you read the magazines pertaining to pro audio (such as EQ or Recording or Mix), you know that a recent trend in audio has been to create microphones, often with professional quality, with built-in preamps and analog-to-digital converters and USB output cables. Such microphones enable one to record digital audio directly to one's computer without having to go through the computer's built-in (and sometimes inferior) sound board, and without having to invest in a bulky digital audio interface.

Examples of such USB microphones include the Blue Snowball, the Blue Snowflake, the Samson C01U, the Audio Technica AT2020 USB, the stereo Alesis AM3 and so forth.

Such microphones are usually very simple to use, but what they offer in terms of simplicity, they lack in terms of flexibility. The selection of available microphones is fairly limited. An additional drawback is that such microphones only feature USB output cables, so they can't be plugged into standard mixing boards, PA systems, self-contained DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations), handheld digital field recorders (such as the excellent and affordable Zoom H4n, which has dual XLR mic inputs with phantom power for condenser microphones), a limited number of instrument amplifiers which have XLR mic inputs, and other devices which require traditional analog audio inputs.

The next step up is to buy a separate in-line adapter which enables one to plug a standard microphone into a computer directly by means of the USB port. Such a unit is more flexible, because it would enable one to use offbeat microphones such as boundary microphones (such as the Audio Technica U841A, which would be a good choice for recording numerous people seated around a conference table), shotgun mics (such as the Audio Technica AT4073a, which would be great for recording unamplified speakers from a distance), gooseneck microphones, hanging microphones, headset microphones, instrument microphones and more. Also, such adapters ought to enable one to input guitar, bass, keyboards, etc. by means of "direct boxes".

Up until recently, the best adapter of this type was the Centrance MicPort Pro. (The AxePort Pro is a similar Centrance product for guitarists and bass players.) It's still an excellent product, as far as I can tell, although I haven't personally used one.

Now Shure (one of the most widely used and respected microphones in the world) has introduced a very similar product (to be available this spring)known as the X2u XLR-to-USB Microphone Adapter.

I know of a couple of other inline XLR-to-USB adapters (the Blue Icycle and the MXL MicMate Pro). They don't seem to be quite as full-featured, but at least the new MicMate Pro improves on the original MicMate by offering a headphone jack with its own volume control. There's also a line level version of the MicMate.

Another option: Alesis makes the MicLink for dynamic microphones and the GuitarLink for instruments. The company also offers the LineLink, which is basically similar to the GuitarLink except that it's equipped with dual 1/4" plugs, not just a single 1/4" plug.

There's also a Griffin USB Microphone Adapter, but it's for low-end mics with 1/8" output cables, which is fine for some purposes but not really suitable for professional condenser mics or for most professional dynamic mics.

For people wishing to connect multiple microphones, there are numerous solutions (which I won't cover here for now), if one is less interested in portability than in versatility. But the aforementioned microphones and mic adapters would enable one to easily record pro audio directly to notebook and laptop computers without the need to carry much additional gear. That's especially useful if one's primary need is for recording voice (e.g., blogs) or for making simple music recordings which don't require the simultaneous use and control of numerous microphones.

Links to All My Downloadable Poems

In other blog posts, I've posted individual Christ-centered poems which I've written. But it would be a hassle to have to navigate from one blog post to the next in order to find each individual poem. (Plus, I haven't posted separate blog posts for every single one of my poems, and it would be too time consuming for me to do that at this point.)

Therefore, this post is being created specifically for the purpose of offering a link for the purpose of offering easy access to a publicly accessible online file folder (hosted by SkyDrive) containing most of my downloadable Christian poems in PDF format (which can be opened, read and printed with Adobe Acrobat Reader and/or other PDF-compatible programs).

To download any individual PDF file (or files) from that folder, click this link, then select the individual poem(s) in the folder, and click the Download link for each file which you wish to download.

By the way, this can be a good way to distribute all types of documents, not just poems.

To convert documents to PDF format, you don't have to pay the high price for Adobe Acrobat (although doing so will give you advanced features you might not be able to get elsewhere). You can convert documents to PDF for free at http://www.pdfonline.com/ or http://www.freepdfconvert.com/.

Then, having created your own SkyDrive account, you can upload your files to specified folders at SkyDrive. One can set up a range of permissions for specific folders: They can be accessible just to you, or to specified individuals (specified by their e-mail addresses), or to the general public.

A Silly Poem I Wrote

For the most part, I try to write poetry which deals with important subjects, particularly in relation to my Christianity. But every once in a while, I write something which exists mostly for the sake of playing with words.

One day I was walking through the Blick art supply store in the Chicago Loop, and as I was looking at supplies for origami, the phrase "origami mommy" stuck in my mind. Since mommies sometimes make origami for their kids, the phrase seemed apropos.

Here, for better or worse, is the poem:

------------
ORIGAMI MOMMY
© Mark Pettigrew

She's an origami mommy in a satin dress.
When it comes to folding paper, well, she's the best!

She makes a paper animal that's sure to please.
She entertains the children with the greatest ease.

When she starts to work her magic with the paper fold,
well, you know that it is truly something to behold.

------------
A bit silly, but hey --- one can't be serious all the time!

Gabcast Makes Podcasting Easy

Wish you could start your own radio station? For most of you (and for me, too), the answer is, "Dream on."

However, podcasting offers the next best thing. In fact, there are some ways in which podcasting is superior to broadcasting. For instance, you can record and upload your podcast episodes whenever you like, and listeners can listen whenever they like, without having to worry about missing any episodes of your show. And of course, they can store those episodes on digital media and/or portable MP3 players (including an iPod, of course) and listen to them again and again.

Also, podcasts can be easily integrated into blogs such as this one. They can also be sent in the form of attachments with e-mail messages.

Think you need a professional audio studio in order to go into podcasting? Well, maybe not. It depends on what your needs are.

I just discovered a service, at Gabcast.com, which allows one to create podcasts from any telephone, including a VoIP telephone. (When one uses a VoIP telephone, it's free to record one's podcast. Telephone access for recording podcasts with a regular phone is 10 cents per minute.)

Gabcast includes some pretty cool features, such as the ability to restrict access to specific podcast channels or episodes. (This would be a great way to communicate with the members of a large organization or the employees of a large company, with confidential information which shouldn't be made available to everyone.)

They also offer the ability to turn conference calls into podcasts, which would be very useful as a means of interviewing people remotely for one's podcast show. And they help to promote your podcast via a page which offers public access to all publicly accessible channels and episodes.

It isn't a total solution for podcasting. If one prefers to be able to record one's podcast with home studio equipment, and then upload the audio recording and turn it into a podcast, one would be better off looking for another hosting solution. But there's no reason one can't use both types of hosting programs.

Having said that, there is a way to use Gabcast for making previous audio recordings into podcasts. Get a professional telephone interface. For that purpose, I recommend products from JK Audio. In particular, their THAT-2 interface seems to be a good choice as a means of sending audio from a professional audio source with an XLR output or an RCA line output. This is much, much better than holding the telephone receiver in front of the speaker from your audio recording/playback system and trying to record your Gabcast episode that way! It's also useful for playing recordings over the phone when conversing with your friends. The THAT-2 is equally good for recording your phone conversations when you don't have Gabcast, or when you want more versatility than you'll get with Gabcast.

JK Audio also makes a variety of other interfaces, such as a unit which allows you to easily record conversations you have with a cell phone (or, in the case of another unit, with a Bluetooth cell phone).

The aforementioned Wikipedia is atypically brief with regard to information about podcasting. Fortunately, it also includes a link to a web page with what appears to be a wealth of information. 76 pages worth, in fact. Here's a link to some additional how-to information.

Back in the 70's, when I worked as KSOZ at the College of the Ozarks (then known as the School of the Ozarks), I got a substantial amount of experience sitting behind a mic. KSOZ was a 20,000 watt FM station affiliated with National Public Radio (NPR). So I think that it's safe to say that I have what it takes to put on a professional-sounding podcast, although setting things up for the affiliated feed would be a new experience for me.

I have a number of ideas with regard to specific podcasts I hope to create in the future. For more information, stay tuned, as they used to say in the broadcasting biz!

Sandra Cisneros Is Clearly Clueless

Here in Chicago, the public library has a program entitled One Book, One Chicago. In the past, they've featured worthy books such as "To Kill A Mockingbird", "The Oxbow Incident", etc.

This time around, their chosen book is "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros. I confess that I'd never heard of the book. That's probably due, in part, to the fact that it was published in 1984, a good 10 years after I graduated from high school. (Cisneros is 2 years older than I.) Even if it's now required reading in high schools, that wouldn't have affected me.

I still haven't read the book, so I'm not really in a position to comment on the book one way or the other. However, after reading the pamphlet published by the City of Chicago, in which they interview the author (who will be speaking here at the Harold Washington Library tonight), I have to say that I think that she's appallingly ignorant and bigoted, in the way that people on the political far left are often ignorant and bigoted.

Here's the part which particularly stood out in my mind, from an interview (pages 4 and 5) with Cisneros:

Q: The House on Mango Street so wonderfully portrays a young girl, Esperanza, discovering her identity. Do you think that such self-discovery is harder for a young Latina girl? Would Esperanza's story be different if she were growing up today?

A: I think it's hard for any woman in the world, regardless of her color, because the world is so patriarchal, especially now with the Christian Taliban taking over women and their lives on one extreme, and the media taking over women on the other polar opposite. It's hard for women to know what they want when they'ver never been asked, but controlled by Church, State, and consumerism. Add to that women are colonized and don't know their history, but in a sense, all women are colonized, don't you think?

It's hard for women to gain access to who they are when they aren't even allowed information about their own bodies, control of their fertility, church and state dictating choices that should belong to women themselves. I had to scavenge to find out about myself as a woman, and as a Latina. In many ways, it's simpler because of access to the web. In some ways it's harder, because women aren't even aware they are not in control of their lives.

In the following paragraph, Sandra claims that "many women don't even know what feminism is". (Here's a thought, Sandra: Maybe a lot of women know exactly what feminism is, and they just don't agree with it. Or at least they don't agree with your paranoid version of feminism.)

Sandra states, "It's hard for women to know what they want when they'ver never been asked, but controlled by Church, State, and consumerism." I think that statement is incoherent.

Imagine anyone saying, "How am I supposed to know what I want to eat for dinner if you don't ask me?" Here's the obvious response to such a question: "If by your own admission you don't know what you want, then what would be the point of asking you what you want? If you don't already know what you want, then being asked what you want is not going to make the answer clear to you."

The idea that men are somehow responsible for the fact that some women don't know what they want is ludicrous, as is the idea that women have never been asked what they want. Believe me, a lot of men wish they knew what women wanted, but they've given up on the quest for such knowledge because it seems almost unattainable. If one repeatedly asks a woman what she wants, only to be told that she doesn't know (or only to be given contradictory answers which are indicative of cognitive dissonance), one will eventually grow weary of asking!

In any event, I'm not sure that it matters much. Women, in my experience, do not need to be asked what they want. They will gladly volunteer that information on their own, with or without being asked, as surely as the sun rises and sets in the sky. Unfortunately, prior to telling men what they want, they will often expect men to intuitively deduce such things without being told. A lot of women seem to think that men ought to have the ability to read minds. Then, if men (being mere human beings and not gods) fail to know what women want without being told, they're often accused of being "insensitive" and "uncommunicative". Give me a break!

(In all fairness, I should admit that women aren't the only people who are guilty of expecting other people to read their minds. However, I've noticed that that unfair expectation seems to be particularly common among women. Maybe they should try being more assertive right from the outset, and just tell people what they want, instead of waiting to be asked or waiting for other people to correctly guess what they want.)

In the context of other things she says in the interview, it seems to me that when she says that women don't know what they want, what Cisneros really means is that a lot of women don't want the things which she, as an ideologically committed feminist, thinks that they ought to want. I guess it's easier for her to tell herself that women who disagree with her just don't know what they want, rather than admitting that women don't all share her views or her values. (In particular, I suspect that the pro-life members of the organization known as Feminists For Life disagree with Sandra about some very specific issues.)

Regarding the aforementioned interview, Cisneros appears to be a very poor listener. Her answers were only vaguely related to the questions posed to her. She chose instead to go off on a self-indulgent tangent, seeing the interview as an opportunity to promote radical feminist ideologies.

The interviewer's question was about whether or not being Latina made self-discovery harder for young girls. In Cisneros' answer, she mentioned being Latina, but she never really answered the question with regard to whether or not being a young Latina girl made it harder to experience self-discovery.

In all fairness, it's conceivable that she ducked the actual question because it was a stupid question. Self-discovery is never easy for anyone, regardless of gender or ethnicity, because one's true identity is known only by God, who knows us far better than we can ever know ourselves. People who equate their "identities" with gender or ethnicity or nationality or cultural heritage will never know who they truly are. When we see ourselves through the eyes of God --- to the extent that our human limitations will allow us to do so --- only then can we discover our true identities. That's a lifetime quest, partially because our identities are not fixed and unchanging things. As we mature, our identities change --- sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. To passively allow other people to define us in terms of our identities is the worst kind of irresponsibility and immaturity. This is true regardless of gender or ethnicity.

Secondly, the interview question ended on an emphasis on societal changes, in-between the time period covered by the book and 2009, which might have affected the story which Sandra told in her book. From what I could see, Sandra didn't say much about that either, but what she did say seemed to suggest that she thought that things had historically been bad for women, and that things were getting worse. (In the third paragraph, she implied that many women now see Paris Hilton as a role model, and she lamented that situation, saying, "At least when I was a young woman there was a feminist movement.")

Cisneros' reference to the Christian Taliban particularly puzzled me. I'd been a Christian ever since accepting Christ as Savior in 1969, and I'd never once heard of such a group. So I have to assume that she's demonstrating her ignorant bigotry by suggesting that fundamentalist and conservative Christians are comparable to members of the Taliban.

I can't say that I've ever known any Christians who forbade women from attending school (as the Taliban was inclined to do) or forced them to almost completely cover their faces in public or done any number of other things which have often attributed to the Taliban in Afghanistan. (I also read a recent news story about an incident in which the Taliban executed a couple for having the audacity to elope! Hmmm, I don't recall ever reading about a similar atrocity being committed by Christians, fundamentalist or otherwise.)

I've known some fundamentalist Christians (such as the students at Baptist Bible College in my hometown), and I have sometimes disagreed with such people with regard to the manner in which they interpret the scriptures. Nevertheless, the disparity between such people and the members of the Taliban was and is enormous. It is utterly specious to insinuate that any significant Christian group in the United States comes remotely close to the Taliban in terms of oppressing women or anyone else.

Women have been in the work force for many years in America, and many of them have risen to positions with far more pay and prestige than any job I've ever had or any job I could ever hope to aspire to have. Over the years, I've had a lot of bosses on the job, and many of them were women. I've never been anyone's boss. But apparently none of that is enough to satisfy Ms. Cisneros. It's as if she's living in some alternate universe in which radical feminists haven't already gotten their way in most major respects (including the recent election of a president described by Ms. Magazine as a true feminist).

Women are oppressed and controlled? Cry me a river!

What's all this stuff about women not being allowed to have information about their own bodies? (I'm tempted to use a much stronger word than "stuff".)

Apparently, Cisneros thinks (quite incorrectly) that gynecological textbooks have been outlawed in America. Presumably, Cisneros has never heard of the pro-abortion book "Our Bodies, Our Selves" which first published in 1970 (long before the web was ever invented) by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective. It is still being published, in revised form, to this day. I strongly disagree with the ideological commitment to legal abortion which is expressed in that book, but the book contains extremely explicit information about women's bodies, and it has been in publication for nearly four decades. I know of no laws which have hindered its publication or penalized women for reading it. I know of no attempts on the part of conservative Christians to hinder the publication or distribution of that book, even though they may vehemently disagree with parts of the book. So regardless of whether one is talking about the information in that book or the information in the numerous other textbooks pertaining to the female anatomy, it seems to me that the only thing preventing women from being informed about their bodies is their own laziness.

Cisneros claims that women aren't allowed "control of their fertility". I know of no public or private program in which fertile women are involuntarily rendered infertile, or vice versa. Therefore, I would find her claim to be extremely confusing, if not for my awareness of the fact that pro-abortion feminists often use the phrase "fertility control" as a disingenuous euphemism which really means legal access to abortion at virtually every stage of fetal development.

Abortion is indeed opposed by conservative Christians such as myself, but it is a demonstrable fact that abortion has nevertheless been legal since 1973. Apparently that's not enough to satisfy Cisneros, since she says that she still believes that female fertility is being controlled by church and state. One cannot help but speculate with regard to what would satisfy her. Perhaps she wishes to follow Barack Obama's lead, with regard to his opposition (when he was a senator) to legislation written specifically for the purpose of making infanticide illegal in the state of Illinois.

The fact is that even if conservatives such as myself succeeded in outlawing abortion, it would have no effect on women's fertility! The issue, with respect to the abortion issue, is not whether or not women are allowed to control their fertility. The issue is whether or not women who are obviously fertile (and who become pregnant as a result of that fertility) ought to be allowed to deliberately kill their unborn children! Incidentally, certain so-called contraceptives, such as RU-486 and the "morning after" pill, are more correctly described as abortifacients. They do not affect a woman's fertility one way or the other.

Sandra says that "women aren't even aware that they are not in control of their lives". I don't know whether or not she claims to be a Marxist, but that statement sounds awfully similar to the propagandistic condescension which is typical of Marxists who believe that their goal ought to be to "enlighten" previously happy and contented people so that those people understand just how bad off they are, so that they are willing to rise up in rebellion against their ostensible oppressors. That kind of garbage is still being spewed by fringe groups of Communists here in Chicago and elsewhere. Hardly anyone takes such groups seriously, due in part to the failure of the Soviet Union, and also due to an awareness of the deplorable abuses historically perpetrated by that regime and by other Communist regimes throughout the world. But that fact doesn't seem to detract from their zeal in the slightest. To say that such people are clueless would be a massive understatement. The same thing could be said for someone who thinks that the way to "liberate" women is to persuade them that they aren't in control of their own lives.

It's difficult to understand how such people think that they're helping other people by telling them that they ought to be angry and miserable. Isn't there enough unavoidable unhappiness in the world as it is, without fanning the flames and adding to the misery?

As for the idea that women are "colonized," I don't even know what Cisneros means by that. I doubt that she knows either. It sounds as if she's taking a mishmash of Marxist propaganda, using a variety of words which she only dimly understands in order to promote the idea that women are oppressed in America, even though nothing could be further from the truth.

It's a shame that the City of Chicago has chosen to honor a woman who is so thoroughly confused, and who engages in shameless slander by insulting Christians and others who believe that our society should treat all living human beings, including both women and unborn children, as if they have value because they are created in the image of a loving God.

Serious Dental Issues

I don't have many "vices," but I do have a weakness for sweets. For instance, I really like Werther's caramels --- smooth, creamy and sweet. And sticky. The sticky part wasn't a problem for me when I was younger, but that was before years of financial problems made it hard for me to afford regular dental care.

A couple of weeks ago, I was endulging in one of the aforementioned caramels, when I felt a hard substance which normally isn't a part of such treats. I carefully removed the caramel from my mouth in order to see if my suspicion was correct. Sure enough, another one of my front teeth had basically rotted off, becoming embedded in the piece of caramel.

Then last night, I was eating a normal meal (nothing sticky) when I lost another portion of a tooth. Most of that tooth was already gone, and the part which remained had previously been covered with a dental crown, but those things have a tendency to become detached after a while, as this one had quite some time ago. It's possible that I might have saved the remaining part of the tooth if I'd had a new crown put on it immediately, but that wasn't an option for me financially.

I didn't feel any pain during either one of the most recent incidents, although I'd felt dental pain earlier, in the latter part of 2008. At that time, I didn't have the money to go to the dentist, so I just treated myself with Anbesol until the pain eventually went away. I knew that that wasn't really the way Anbesol was meant to be used, but going to the dentist (and getting the expensive root canal which almost certainly would have been necessary in order to save the tooth) wasn't an option for me.

I grew up in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri. The stereotype, regarding the "hillbillies" for which that region is known, is that of ignorant, inordinately poor folks who wear overalls, go barefoot, drive pickup trucks, drink moonshine, carry shotguns, and have big gaps in front where their teeth ought to be. It's a ludicrously unfair stereotype (although it may contain elements of truth on rare occasions), but it exists nevertheless. It doesn't help that there are savvy business people from the Ozarks who have milked the stereotype for commercial purposes (particularly in relation to certain music shows common in the Branson area). The negative image of hillbillies may be beneficial to certain businesses in Branson, but it is not conducive to the process of trying to find a good job in Chicago (especially if it's a job as a receptionist for a dental clinic, but really in any situation which requires face-to-face contact with the public). But one doesn't always have control over every aspect of one's life.

It's a Catch 22 type of situation, also known as a vicious circle. The dental issues significantly hinder my efforts to find work, and my inability to find a good job (or a good and legitimate alternative source of income) hinders my ability to pay a dentist to address the dental issues. Of course, there are also other issues, having nothing to do with dentistry, which are hindering my job search. But it would definitely help me in my job search if I didn't have to deal with the dental impediment as well. First impressions can make a big difference, and big gaps in one's teeth do not make for a good first impression.

(Nor does the noticeable bulge from my hernia --- but that's a topic for another blog article.)

I know that lawyers sometimes do "pro bono" work for the poor and destitute. I don't know if there are any dentists in the Chicago area who would be able and willing to do such work. If you do know of someone fitting that description (or if you know of someone who'd help me by paying for such dental work), that information would be greatly appreciated.

The truth is that I really need implants, particularly for the front teeth, but also for some of my missing back teeth as well.

I had partial dentures back in the late 80's, but it was so hard for me to eat with them in my mouth that I basically stopped wearing them after just a little while. Try eating pizza with a topping of stringy cheese while wearing partials, if you don't believe me. What a nightmare! What's the point of dentures if you can't eat the foods you love while wearing them in your mouth? Beats me.

To contact me to discuss these matters, please send me an e-mail at mwp1212(AT)gmail.com.

Are You Churched? Does It Matter?

Back in the 90's, I bought a book by Lee Strobel (of Willow Creek Church) entitled "Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary". The book focuses on evangelism, and has a lot of useful observations and ideas (many of which have been implemented at Willow Creek) with regard to how we might make our churches more friendly (and less intimidating) for unbelievers, so that cultural barriers do not hinder such people from listening to the gospel with an open mind.

Overall, I have no problem with that idea, provided that it doesn't result in a church in which spiritual "meat" is seldom offered to believers who are ready to go on to the next level, and provided that it doesn't strip out the harsh but nevertheless true aspects of the gospel which are essential to an accurate understanding of the Christian faith.

Unfortunately, some Christians think that it has in fact done just that, in the case of Willow Creek and other "seeker friendly" churches such as Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church. Such critics appear to think that the slogan for such churches ought to be "all of the milk, none of the meat" --- or perhaps "quantity, not quality".

That may be an unfair exaggeration, but I still think that we ought to take such criticisms seriously. There is a balance, and we ought to seek that balance. It ought to be possible to create a "seeker-friendly" church which nevertheless makes no moral compromises. We shouldn't confuse our human traditions (many of which alienate unbelievers to an unnecessary degree) with God's word. However, even if we make adjustments to our methods in order to create church environments which are more "seeker-friendly," there is no way to please everyone. Pleasing God should always be our first priority, even if it sometimes makes the marketing "experts" unhappy.

I think that the title of the Strobel book also raises some interesting questions which ought to be discussed by all Christians in more depth:

1. If someone is currently "unchurched," does it logically follow in every instance that the person is therefore an unbeliever? Does it logically follow, for that matter, that the person is a shallow or immature Christian? Is it possible that there are situations in which the fact that a person is "unchurched" says less about that person than it says about the churches to which that person has access? Might there not even be cases in which obedience to the Lord would demand that one refrain from participation in the activities of specific churches?
2. Conversely, if a person is "churched," does it automatically follow that he or she is a faithful and spiritually mature disciple of Christ who has a vital relationship with God? (I think that the obvious answer is NO. I'm reminded of preachers who have correctly pointed out that living in a hen house doesn't make one a chicken.)
3. Should our goal be to make people into "church people," into converts, or into disciples? What are the differences, if any, between those three things? Why did Jesus tell us to go and make people into disciples, not into church people or converts?
4. What is the basis for the assumption that the only way or the best way to win unbelievers to Christ is to persuade them to attend church with us? Is that the most appropriate or effective way in which to do evangelistic work? What about the role of individual Christians insofar as evangelism is concerned? Is their role merely to get folks to come to church so that they can hear formal evangelistic presentations? Isn't it somewhat lazy to rely primarily on the "professionals" for evangelism, rather than learning to actively share one's faith with one's friends, relatives, neighbors, coworkers, etc.? What are the best ways to teach people to allow God to directly use them in such a manner?
5. Why aren't we Christians making more of an active effort to infiltrate the surrounding culture with the gospel of Christ so that it isn't necessary to bring people to church in order to present the gospel to them in a manner which leads to conversions?

It would be simplistic, I think, to focus solely on one method of evangelism to the exclusion of other methods. God can and sometimes does bring people to salvation in Christ as the result of being invited to church services or special evangelistic events sponsored by churches. But I think that it's unfortunate when we ignore the numerous other opportunities with which we are presented. We need to encourage fellow believers to be bold and creative in terms of sharing their beliefs with non-Christians.

We can do so by setting up group activities which enable people who have never "witnessed" to others before to get their feet wet so that they eventually feel very comfortable about talking about the Lord with others, and by creating environments (such as storefront Christian coffeehouses) which are particularly conducive to such conversations with unbelievers. (Most churches, even the best churches, are NOT conducive to such honest conversations.)

People learn how to do such things by doing such things, and by observing other Christians as they engage in such conversations. I also think that we ought to invest time in training people in advance (using role playing exercises, for example) so that they are encouraged to spend time thinking about how they might most effectively answer specific objections when engaging in conversations with unbelievers. We should also make people aware of various training resources (such as Paul E. Little's book "How to Give Away Your Faith", which helped me quite a bit when I was young) pertaining to personal evangelism.

I also think that it's vital to emphasize the idea that listening to unbelievers and attempting to honestly grapple with their questions and issues is an essential aspect of effective evangelism. Far too many Christians approach unbelievers with an attitude which borders on disdain or condescension. Such "evangelism" can be worse than no evangelism at all.

No methodology can replace a personal one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ in terms of training people to engage in witnessing and evangelism, but having such a relationship doesn't necessarily mean that one will be an effective evangelist. That's why people need to be actively trained and encouraged to share their faith with people who aren't saved.

When people become personally involved in kingdom building by sharing their faith directly with unbelievers --- instead of merely promoting the evangelistic activities at their local churches --- then they are well on their way to becoming real disciples, not just church goers or converts.

Neglect Is A Form Of Abuse

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about my vision for a Christian ministry which would help numerous Christians and Christian ministries to more effectively communicate with other Christians, without being hindered by denominational or geographical boundaries. At the beginning of the article, I made it clear that I believed that such a ministry would help Christians to more effectively obey "the law of Christ" by bearing one another's burdens.

It seems to me that there is a special need for such a ministry in this time of extreme economic uncertainty and stress, from which many believers and unbelievers alike are suffering. I believe that we Christians have the resources to collectively meet such needs, especially here in America. However, it does very little good for us to have the necessary material resources, if we do not implement a means by which people in need can easily make connections with other people who are willing and able to help.

If I thought that the current methods of meeting such needs were adequate, I never would have made such a proposal in the first place. However, I believe that our current methods, while better than nothing, fall short of what is needed. My intention in making such a proposal was not to impugn good men and women of God. Rather, my intention was to do everything I could do to address the needs which were not being met, in a manner which would not only help me personally, but which would also help numerous other Christians.

One would think that godly leaders would be thrilled to learn that Christians such as myself wanted to launch new ministries which would help them to more effectively minister to hurting people. But that assumes that the leaders in our churches have a genuine desire to minister to such needs, and it assumes that the meeting of such needs takes precedence over the preservation of protocol in the minds of those leaders.

Unfortunately, the gap between the inspiring rhetoric often heard from our pulpits and the actual day-to-day realities in our local churches is sometimes wider than a four lane interstate highway. Like many of the religious leaders in Jesus' day, many of today's church leaders feel threatened by initiatives which are designed to empower ordinary Christians to be all that they can be. Perhaps such leaders erroneously feel that if Christians realized how much ministry could be accomplished without the direct involvement of their pastors, people would somehow feel as if their pastors were no longer necessary.

I find that incredibly sad. Such insecurity speaks poorly for the maturity level of such so-called leaders. The purpose of Christian ministry is to exhalt the name of Christ, not to exhalt the names of specific Christian leaders at the expense of other Christians. What's important is not who does the job. What's important is that the job gets done!

Please don't misunderstand the preceding statement. Obviously, it's important for ministries of all types to be led by people of good moral character. However, it's erroneous to assume that professional clergy are the only people who fit that description. In fact, based on an observation of the numerous scandals which have involved Christian pastors and leaders in recent years, it seems to me that our pastors and professional leaders might be well advised to collectively get their own acts together before they presume that they are uniquely qualified to do God's will. Misquotations of scriptures pertaining to "submission to authority" only serve to insure that such scandals will continue, by insulating such leaders from internal criticism in such a manner which insures that abuses of power are tolerated far longer than they ought to be tolerated.

People tend to think about blatant forms of active abuse (such as sexual molestation or adultery) when they hear about spiritual abuse, but neglect is also a form of abuse.

Jesus did not tell St. Peter to bully his sheep, nor did he tell Peter to neglect or ignore his sheep. He told Peter to feed his sheep. And who (other than God) is in a better position than the sheep to know whether or not they are being adequately fed?

Whose sheep were they? Peter's? No! They were (and are) Christ's sheep. The people of God are a stewardship from God. Pastors will be held accountable on Judgment Day for the manner in which they have dealt with the human resources entrusted by God to them.

Each and every member of the Body of Christ has an important role to play, just as it says in the book of I Corinthians. A church in which the majority of the people are passive spectators rather than being active contributors is an impotent church which deserves to recede into cultural insignificance. That isn't the way the early Christian church operated.

There is a need for clergy, and I am not by any means trying to undermine such leaders or to diminish the respect which is due to such leaders. But only Christ is entitled to receive our unqualified devotion and submission.

Furthermore, as I see it, "professional Christians" such as pastors have a moral responsibility to use all of the human resources at their disposal, by offering real opportunities to all of the Christians within their midst to actively serve God. It is not the proper role of a pastor to force each person who wishes to engage in ministry to "run the gauntlet" in order to demonstrate his or her worthiness to serve. Instead of automatically assuming that people who wish to engage in certain types of ministries need to prove their worthiness, such people should be given the benefit of the doubt (thereby treating them in accordance with the principles of the Golden Rule) unless there is solid evidence to suggest that they as individuals are unworthy. And even then, such people deserve the right to defend themselves against what may very well be false accusations. That, after all, is the way each one of us would wish to be treated.

Only when there are legitimate, scripturally defensible reasons for barring people from ministry (as in the case of people who promote heresies or live ungodly lifestyles) should pastors exercise such restrictive authority. Otherwise it's just a raw and self-centered demonstration of power, not a demonstration of the "servant leadership" exemplified and taught by Jesus Christ.

The Grass Withers

Here's a design I created in Photoshop, using a "four square collage" featuring four of my floral photos, plus an appropriate Bible verse. I actually have created TIF files which would enable me to make prints in a wide range of sizes, from 4x6 to 24x36.

I'm hoping to sell fine art prints of this design, in order to raise funds for the Christian Arts Initiative, and also to help tide me over financially until I get a more steady source of income. (And of course, the supplementary income from such print sales will always be welcome!)

When displayed on a thumbnail image, the script text font is a bit more difficult to read than a standard sans serif font would be! But even at this size, it is still legible --- and of course, the text will be much more legible when the design is enlarged significantly in order to make big prints. I also think that the script font contributes greatly to the aesthetic appeal of the product.

The text says:

The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

The aforementioned text is from I Peter 1:24-26, which in turn is a quotation from Isaiah 40:48.

Since When Is The Word "Pimp" Respectable?

Theodore Dalrymple is the author of the book "Our Culture, What's Left of It". The book is an analysis and critique of cultural decline in countries such as England and the United States, particularly in relation to the connection between barbarous behavior and socialism. (That makes the book "must reading" for anyone stupid enough to think that Barack Obama, who has ushered in a new era of socialism in the United States, is the new messiah.)

I'm reminded of Dalrymple's book when I contemplate the manner in which the word "pimp" (which has always referred to a male person who exploits prostitutes for profit, and which has often been used, as well, to refer to a despicable person) is now being used as if the word is a positive thing --- as in the television show "Pimp My Ride". Apparently, the "positive" use of the word is a derivation of "hip-hop culture" (which is an oxymoron if ever I heard one).

People who think that being a pimp is a good thing are undoubtedly the same morons who think that it's appropriate to regularly and casually use words which rhyme with the phrase "brother trucker" and which refer to people who commit incest with their maternal parents. But who knows? Maybe where they come from, incest is an accepted part of normal everyday life, and people who exploit and abuse prostitutes are deemed worthy of their respect. That is certainly the conclusion a rational person would draw, based on the way that such people talk.

For people who think that the aforementioned comments are "racist," I would point out that there are numerous respectable African-Americans (e.g., Thomas Sowell, Alan Keyes, Bill Cosby, etc.) who have rejected the thug mentality which seems to dominate large sectors of the black community today (and which has slowly seeped, like pungently raw sewage, into the vocabularies of people from other sectors of society as well). I thank the Lord for that! But I fear that our "nonjudgmental" attitude towards people with no class and no morals is leading to a situation in which people such as Sowell, Keyes and Cosby will soon be viewed as irrelevant anachronisms in mainstream society, or in what passes for society.

Closer to the Abyss

This article speaks for itself, I think.

However, regarding the title of this blog post, I should specify (since there are multiple possible definitions of the word "abyss") that I'm using the following definition (from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition):

"The abode of evil spirits; hell."
abyss. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abyss (accessed: March 19, 2009).

Consistency and the Value of Human Life

Today's issue of the Chicago Sun-Times (3/4/2009) has an article about the murder of Rhoni Reuter in October 2007. Reuter was the girlfriend of former Chicago Bears player Shaun Gayle.

In his statement, Gayle said he is still struggling to accept the loss of Reuter and their unborn daughter. "We were both so looking forward to meeting our daughter, Skylar, who was due on Dec. 18. I cannot express how painful it has been to lose both of them." (Emphasis mine.)

Notice that the unborn child already had a name (Skylar Reyne), which is pretty interesting in light of the fact that leaders in the "pro-choice" movement once described unborn children as mere "blobs of tissue". It somehow seems odd that people would feel compelled to give human names to blobs of tissue. When was the last time you heard of anyone giving a name to an appendix, a liver or a gall bladder?

I see such news stories as ongoing evidence of America's disturbing cognitive dissonance when it comes to the question of whether or not unborn children are human beings.

When unborn children are wanted, then they are treated in every respect as if they are human beings, just as newborn children would be treated. Women who miscarry their unborn children mourn the loss of those children. People who commit murders against pregnant women are generally treated as if they have murdered two people, not just one. Murdering anyone is a horrible thing to do, but most people consider that the act of murder is particularly heinous when the victim happens to be carrying an unborn child in her womb.

Yet, paradoxically, if pregnant women wish to kill their own unborn children, they are treated as if they are merely exercising their constitutional "rights" --- as if their unborn children are not human beings at all.

Frankly, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. Is an unborn child a human being with inalienable rights, or not? As a society, we can't seem to make up our minds. Our assessment of the issue therefore seems to be guided more by sentimentality than by logic or by principles.

If indeed the value of a human being varies from one moment to the next, depending on whether or not that human being is wanted by his or her mother, then why shouldn't that principle also be applicable to human beings who have already been born? If that's the case, doesn't that value system jeopardize the right of every human being on the face of the earth to be protected from murder?

In fact, that was exactly how the Nazis viewed human life at the beginning of the era which would culminate in the Holocaust. In their view, human beings had no innate value derived from the mere fact that they were human beings. According to the Nazi world view, certain human lives were "worth living" and others were not. In their view, the Nazis were gifted with the ability to declare the difference between the two categories of humanity, and they were ostensibly endowed with the right and the wisdom to terminate the lives of those (such as mentally or physically handicapped people or the political enemies of the state) deemed undesirable. We all know where that type of thinking eventually led.

We Americans were raised according to a different set of principles. We were taught by our "founding fathers" that all human beings were and are created equal, being endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the most fundamental right of all, the right to life. To say that a right is "inalienable" is to say that no other human being (not even a person's mother) is entitled to ignore that right or take it away.

Sadly, we seem to have developed a case of national amnesia with regard to our founding principles. The result is an incoherent patchwork of nonsensical self-contradictions.

If we as a nation ever hope to regain the moral high ground which would entitle us to argue that the American system of democratic government represents the best hope for mankind, we need to return to the principled value system upon which our nation was founded. We need to gently but firmly reject any attempt to deprive any category of human beings of their divinely endowed rights.

When we have deviated from our principles, as in the case of our acceptance of the oppressive institution of slavery, it has harmed our credibility throughout the world. When we have accepted the challenge of causing our laws to consistently conform to the principles we have espoused, we have brought nobility to the American experiment of self-government.

Love and Judgment

One of interesting things about God is the fact that God is love, and God is also the judge to whom we will all answer for our actions when we die. Some people have a hard time wrapping their minds around the idea that God can be both loving and judgmental. They think that love and judgment are mutually exclusive. They could not be more wrong.

Without judgment, there can be no justice. Without justice, there can be no meaningful love for the victims of injustice. Therefore, true love demands judgment --- specifically, judgment of those who would cause harm to others.

Once a person accepts the idea that love and judgment are not mutually exclusive, and that in fact there are situations in which it's impossible to be truly loving without being judgmental, then it's easy to understand how God can be both loving and judgmental.

It should also be easy to understand the idea that our own moral obligations include the obligation to deal with one another in a manner which reflects God's character. If indeed God's love for innocent victims is the motivation which causes him to judge people who would victimize others, then it logically follows that we likewise have an obligation to intervene in such situations --- and to judge and punish others for their harmful acts when such action is appropriate.

Who determines what counts as "harmful" acts? Do we finite human beings have the authority or wisdom to do so? No.

We may rationalize certain sins by saying that "no one really got hurt," but God is in a much better position to assess the damages caused by sins than we are. Many of the acts considered "harmless" by hedonists are in fact very harmful.

Sexual sin, for example, destroys families. Contrary to the teachings of morally depraved people such as Hugh Hefner, fornication and adultery are not harmless little indulgences which hurt no one. Sexual intercourse which doesn't occur within the context of marital commitment has wide-ranging societal consequences, not the least of which is the proliferation of single-parent families in which children are deprived of the ongoing support and guidance of both father and mother. Such deprivation is everybody's business, inasmuch as it statistically leads to increased poverty and crime. Therefore, telling people to mind their own business, when they criticize others for their sexual sin, amounts to a failure to really grasp the significance of such sin.

The same principle is applicable to many other so-called "private" sins as well.

Saying that we are sometimes entitled or even obligated to judge others is not the same as saying that we have unfettered freedom when it comes to our judgments of others. Jesus made it very clear that we incur certain responsibilities when we judge others. To the extent that we judge others, we will be judged by God (which is what Jesus meant when he said, "Judge not, that you be not judged"), so we must strive to be as critical of ourselves as we are with respect to the sins of others. We must seek to be people of integrity. We must ruthlessly root out hypocrisy in our own lives. No one does this perfectly, but it should nevertheless be our constant goal.

We should also seek to make judgments which are not arbitrary, but which in fact can be defended on the basis of reason, on the basis of God's word, and on the basis of the truth about particular people and particular situations. We should remember that our judgments are themselves subject to judgment by others and, far more importantly, by God.

Humility is essential. We must not claim to know more than we actually know. That's why we must leave final judgment up to God, knowing that things are not always what they superficially appear to be.

However, the need for humility should not be used as a lame excuse for failing to take a stand against evil and wrongdoing. Our judgments may be imperfect, but that does not change the fact that we are obligated to take a stand against such deeds.

Liberalism and The Illusion of Fairness

Here's a link to a good blog post recently written by Pat Boone, regarding attempts by liberals to use the Fairness Doctrine to their political advantage, in order to effectively muzzle political conservatives (particularly in relation to talk radio). The Fairness Doctrine sounds good in theory, but it's actually designed to cement the well-documented unfair advantage which liberals typically enjoy insofar as the media is concerned.

I've always liked Pat, ever since I read his autobiography (in which he told about how he'd accepted Christ as Savior), and ever since I subsequently met him at a Howard Johnson motel (in 1970) shortly after he'd starred as David Wilkerson in "The Cross and The Switchblade" (in which the part of Nicky Cruz was played by Erik Estrada). I might not agree with Pat 100% of the time, but in general, I find that his thinking is aligned with my own.

I also like what Pat has to say about abortion in the aforementioned article.