Somethings photos are of beautiful things, and sometimes they’re of a rats’ nest.

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Part of our study guide for our Men’s Christian Education Class included a discussion of the origin of the individual soul. I was intrigued by this and wrote a short review of the issue. Attached is the original document.

Definitions:
Traducianism—The soul is propagated along with the body by natural generation. I.e., we received our souls from our parents.
Creationism—God creates each soul specially for the fœtus in utero.
(Pre-existentianism—All souls existed in a previous state before birth, often coupled with the belief in a fall of humans in this spirit state before Adam in Eden. This is listed a note of historical interest. Origen [d. 254], who was the principal proponent of this view was anathematized in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.)

A Brief History
This question has been debated since the early church. Tertullian (d. c. 220) first proposed traducianism to explain the transmission of original sin (by inheritance). Traducianism became popular in the western regions of the Church (including northern Africa) but the eastern regions of the Church held to creationism. As noted, Origen held to the preëxistence of souls, but is not widely received outside of Alexandria. Augustine (d. 430) was undecided on the issue. The Scholastics (1100-1500) all held creationism although some of the earlier Schoolmen viewed creationism as more probable but not certain. In the Reformation, Luther favoured traducianism, but Calvin espoused creationism. As covenant theology developed, the notion of inherited original sin was replaced with the concept of the federal headship of Adam acting on behalf of humanity in the covenant of works.

Some Proponents of Each Position:
Traducians:
Tertullian d. 220
Gregory of Nyssa d. 394
Martin Luther d. 1546
Jonathan Edwards d. 1758
W. G. T. Shedd d. 1894
A. H. Strong d. 1924
Gordon Clark d. 1985

Creationists:
Hilary of Picavium d. 368
Jerome d.420
Peter Lombard d. 1160
Thomas Aquinas d. 1274
John Calvin d. 1564
Francis Turritin d. 1687
Herman Bavinck d. 1921
Louis Berkhof d. 1957
Wayne Grudem b. 1948

Scripture References:

Cited for traducianism:
Genesis 2:2
And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.
Genesis 5:3
When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
John 1:13
who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Acts 17:26
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
Romans 1:3
concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh
Hebrews 7:9-10
One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.

Cited for creationism:
Numbers 16:22
And they fell on their faces and said, “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?”
Ecclesiastes 12:7
and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Isaiah 42:5
Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
Zechariah 12:1
The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him:
Hebrews 12:9
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?

A Brief Overview of the Debate

Arguments for traducianism:
1. God largely ceased from his creative work after the creation week, now working ordinarily through secondary causes.
2. Explains of how original sin is transmitted without invoking God directly creating souls for evil.

Rebuttals against traducianism:
1. Regeneration is a new creative process which does not depend on secondary causes
2. The imputation original sin does not require the inheritance model of transmillion.

Objections to traducianism:
1. It is against the philosophical doctrine of the simplexity of the soul. To avoid arguing that the soul is divided from or a composite of the parents’ souls, traducians sometimes propose a. the soul is potentially present in the seed of the man and/or the woman which is materialism or b. the soul is brought forth by the parents, which makes the parents creators in a sense.
2. Traducianism is usually believed together with a form of (Platonic) realism. This accounts for the original guilt via the numerical unity of man and the inheritance of original sin. However this cannot explain why men are only held responsible for the first sin of Adam and not his later sins or the sins of all their ancestors
3. Realism leads to problems with Christology. If human nature as a whole sinned in Adam (who at that time contained the whole of human nature) and this sin is the actual sin of every part of that human nature ‘then the conclusion cannot be escaped that the human nature of Christ was also sinful and guilty because it had actually sinned in Adam.’ (Berkhof)

Rebuttals to objections to traducianism:
1. Simplexity properly belongs to God. Shedd argues by analogy that the lighting of a second candle by the first is similar to psychical propagation. A. the potentiality may be present with but not in the seed and b. in other aspects humans in some sense are creators working with existing materials to bring forth new things.
2. Realism is not a necessary component of traducianism but if one holds to it then it may be argued the sins of Adam and Eve before and after the fall are of a different type. Whereas before the fall sin was against the probationary statute, after they were transgressions of the moral law. Also the subsequent sins of men were not committed by the entire race in and with Adam; after propagation Adam was not the whole of the human race but only a fraction.
3. The sinless nature of Christ is not problematic if a miraculous conception is held. Shedd argues that ‘So far, then, as the guilt of Adam’s sin rested upon that unindividualizcd portion of the common fallen nature of Adam assumed by the Logos, it was expiated by the one sacrifice on Calvary. The human nature of Christ was prepared for the personal union with the Logos, by being justified, as well as sanctified.’

Arguments for creationism:
1. It is more consistent with the Scriptural idea of the body being of the earth and the spirit being of God.
2. It preserves better the distinction of the immaterial nature of the soul.

Rebuttals against creationism:
1. and 2. It is incorrect to associate propagation with materialism; it is not outside of God’s power to propagate the spirit.

Objections to creationism:
1. Creationism makes God the author of evil either a. directly by creating a soul with evil tendencies or b. by united a pure soul with a body with will inevitably corrupt it.
2. It makes the parents the progenitors of only the body of the child and limits the race of men to just the flesh. By contrast the animals reproduce after their kind. Creationism does not account for the observation that not just physical characteristics are inherited but personality traits and peculiarities which run in families, even when the parents do not raise their children.

Rebuttals to objections to creationism:
1. While this is a difficult problem, however the creationist does not regard original sin entirely as a result of inheritance. ‘The descendants of Adam are sinners, not as a result of their being brought into contact with a sinful body, but in virtue of the fact that God imputes to them the original disobedience of Adam. And it is for this reason that God withholds from them original righteousness, and the pollution of sin naturally follows.
2. God can create souls adapted to particular situations or perhaps the union with the body influences the soul. Also we are not certain the extent of the role environment plays.

Conclusion
The arguments on both sides of the debate are well-balanced and Scripture gives no clear support to either position. Perhaps Deuteronomy 29.29 speaks best to this discussion, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

Trivia:
The word traducian has a shared root with tradition and traitor. Each of these words deals with the concept of something being handed over.

Bibliography
Berkhof, Systematic Theology
Shedd, Dogmatic Theology
Williamson, The Westminster Confession: A Study Guide

Further reading:
Turretin, Creationism or Traducianism?
Clark, Traducianism

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The Bible is God’s story and it begins with these big words: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” — The Big Picture Story Bible

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I took some pictures of the progress in the backyard and Charlie’s party. We blogged about Charlie’s party on our family blog and soon we’ll have more blogs about the progress of the backyard and Charles’ reaction to it. But in this post I wanted to include some photos and descriptions.

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The Death of the Disc was a traditionalist who prided himself on his personal service and spent most of the time being depressed because this was not appreciated. He would point out that no-one feared death itself, just pain and separation and oblivion, and that it was quite unreasonable to take against someone just because he had empty eye-sockets and a quiet pride in his work. He still used a scythe, he’d pointed out, while the Deaths of other worlds had long ago invested in combined harvesters.

Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues? And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that’d happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn’t a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time…

Recently our family went to the IWM, International Wildlife Museum. Feel free to check out our family blog for details. While Heather wrote a wonderful article with photos on the experience, I shall concentrate more on the content of the museum.

The museum had several large rooms of preserved animals, ranging from insects to birds to megafauna. Included were a few skeletons of prehistoric animals, exhibits on the Sonoran Desert, and displays on poaching and conservation. While I did not get to examine the poaching exhibit, I did notice a few placards interspersed with the exotic animals advocating conservation and relaying success stories where numbers of animals have increased through stewardship programs.  One room in particular (The Head and Horns Room) reminded me uncomfortably of Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game. I learnt the museum is an educational program of the Safari Club International Foundation (SCIF). SCIF is ‘dedicated to increasing knowledge and appreciation of the world’s diverse wildlife, as well as explaining the role of wildlife management in conservation. (Flyer at museum)’

The message of the museum is very different from the standard message one hears from the media where man is the bogeyman responsible for all sorts of animal atrocities. It was interesting to see this different point of view. Although I was not able to read all of the placards (it’s hard to when chasing your son who wants to walk everywhere) the museum seemed to present a rather positive view of humans in conserving endangered species. The museum also highlighted the funds hunters pay being used for the conservation of the prey, increasing their numbers. It was interesting to see this point of view and realize what good man has done in his environment.

On a related note the DVDs for Planet Earth have three documentaries of which I’ve watched the first. I thought the first was very well balanced, asking questions of: how do we improve impoverished peoples so they don’t destroy wildlands, and is environmentalism a Western luxury? I was surprised the message wasn’t heavy-handed like so much environmentalism. I look forward to watching the other two documentaries.

In conclusion, I enjoyed going to the museum and look forward to going again when I have more time to read the exhibit descriptions.

I found this xkcd comic from a few days ago particularly funny.

This summer our family and another split a CSA share. I hear most of you asking, ‘What is a CSA?’ (Unless, of course, you’ve been around me, and then I’m sure I’ve droned on an on about it.) A CSA is, in essence, an investment in a farm, where one shares in its profits and risks. A sum of money (or investment) is paid to the farm, which entitles the investor to periodic quantities of produce. Hence the acronym stands for Community-Supported Agriculture. The CSA model was developed in Germany and Switzerland in the 1960s as an alternative to the industrial food supply chain. (The German word for CSA is Landwirtschaftsgemeinschaftshof) But usually the CSA is much more to the members than the cold transaction previously described. Members usually share recipes and cooking tips and get to know their farmers and how their food is grown. Most CSAs grow food organically and members pick up their shares from a central pickup location.

The Tucson CSA began in 2004 and offers a variety of fruits and vegetables. Members sign up for a share each season and pick up an allotment each week at the Historic Y near the University. This season we have received: onions, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, eggplant, melons, potatoes, wheat-berries, cucumber, flowers, and squash among other produce.

Enjoy these pictures of CSA harvests:

And check out the Tucson CSA website.

A little while ago, as I was surfing the blogosphere, I came across the blog: The Greenest Dollar. The site has much useful information on being economical and environmental. One of my favourite recent posts concerned natural ant control which in addition to offering useful tips to get rid of them includes interesting information about ants. We also have learnt about reusable sandwich bags, vermicomposting, and cleaning up broken CFLs (which fortunately I haven’t done but I sure I will at some point). The site has quite a few useful links to other thrifty or environmental websites, and it is quite easy to spend a few hours looking at the site and links. I am grateful for sites like these which help use fulfil our mandate to steward the earth (Genesis 1.28).

Today marks the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth. Born Jean Cauvin, in a small town in northern France, he became the most well known and influential theologian of the second generation of Reformers.

As many of my readers already know, Calvin fever is high this year in both popular and scholastic circles. Conferences are running in Geneva (and elsewhere) as many undertake a Protestant pilgrimage. A few new biographies have come out this year (John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life, John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor, etc.) as well as studies, coffee table books (The Piety of John Calvin: A Collection of His Spiritual Prose, Poems, and Hymns, and a historical fiction novel (Betrayal). Undoubtedly, Calvin himself would be embarrassed by this publicity; his will directed he be buried in an unmarked grave.

However, there is good reason to study John Calvin; he systematized Protestant theology in his The Institutes of Christian Religion; he (along with other Reformers) helped create the ‘Protestant work ethic’ with his teachings on vocation. Like Luther, he expounded the sovereignty of God in all things and our absolute dependence on grace for our salvation. His definition of justification in his Institutes is classic:

Now he is justified who is reckoned in the condition not of a sinner, but of a righteous man: and for that reason, he stands firm before God’s judgment seat while all sinners fall….Thus, justified before God is the man who, freed from the company of sinners, has God to witness and affirm his righteousness. In the same way, therefore, he in whose life that purity and holiness will be found which deserves a testimony of righteousness before God’s throne will be said to be justified by works, or else he who, by the wholeness of his works, can meet and satisfy God’s judgment. On the contrary, justified by faith is he who, excluded from the righteousness of works, grasps the righteousness of Christ through faith, and clothed in it, appears in God’s sight not as a sinner but as a righteous man.

Although John Calvin is known primarily as a great theologian, he considered himself primarily a pastor. His letter-writing was prolific, offering godly counsel and practical advice. Likewise, his sermons have also been overlooked. (Fortunately, some previously untranslated sermons are now available in English.) As we remember Calvin, let us not only remember his great contributions to systematic theology or the logic of his description of salvation; let us also remember his piety, his zeal for godliness, and passion to see Christ preached.

As for myself, I’ll read a Calvin biography this year and probably pick up a copy of his sermons on Genesis.

news |n(y)oōz|
noun
newly received or noteworthy information, esp. about recent or important events
from New Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition

In the last two weeks, most media outlets have tirelessly broadcast the untimely death of Michael Jackson. So much so that that other news (Iran, Al Franklin, Congress debating on universal health care, etc. [even other celebrities' deaths]) have been pushed to the sidelines. I saw an advertisement for a TV news special entitled. ‘Is the media coverage of Michael Jackson too much?’ I think that by the media asking the question, they have their answer. Apparently journalists have no one else to interview and have begun reporting on themselves.

For another interesting perspective, Carl Trueman has a post A Very English Death Scene at Ref21.

I’m probably a little behind but just noticed that my friends have been using Posterous.com lately and thought I’d try it out. So, this is my first use of that service.
 
Also, I took this picture in San Diego when I went the weekend after Memorial Day; I’ve been increasing my knowledge of Adobe Photoshop. I like the subtle use of lilac in this composition; Heather also enjoys this picture.

Soon I hope to update the blog with more on my series on whole foods with some links to blogs and further reviews of books. Until then enjoy the above picture.

In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser tells the story of the fast food industry. He covers various aspects from history, to marketing, to artificial (and natural) flavour, to slaughterhouses, to why French fries taste so good. Although most us know fast food is not healthy, I suspect most of us do not know how fast food became so prevalent in American culture, and do not realize all the details of how the food gets to us.

The two sections I found the most interesting discussed artificial flavouring and marketing. During the research for the book, Schlosser toured a flavour factory in New Jersey. Here various artificial flavours are created; the products of chemical reactions. In addition, natural flavours are distilled from flora. In the end, the final makeup of natural and artificial flavours is very similar.

The most interesting part of the book was that statistics and practices of marketing to children. The author relates sever of the fast food industry’s past marketing campaigns, many of which my wife and I remember from childhood, such as McDonald’s Teenie Beanie Baby Giveaway and Pizza Hut’s Book It Program. It is disturbing how much is spent on advertising to children. TV ads and give-away programs are not the only marketing, increasingly companies are signing deals with schools to allow advertisements on campus in return for additional funds. Tastes developed in childhood persist into adulthood. America’s health problem is due in no small part to the availability of cheap food.

Schlosser suggests that we ban (or limit) advertising to children. A conclusion with which I support. With the exception of a few child actors, children do not generate money. They are largely dependant on parents’ money for purchasing power. Several marketing studies show advertising to children incites them to nag their parents for the advertised product; several different nagging styles have been identified by researchers. Children, furthermore, cannot tell the different between the TV programme they are watching and the advertising, and do not realize the purpose of advertising; i.e, to sell a product. Advertising any products to children thus usurps the household œconomy and encourages them to break the Fifth Commandment (Honour your father and mother…). Children sadly believe advertisers over their parents and doubt their parent have their best interests in mind. While parents should not encourage or allow excessive TV use, and should not leave their children watching TV unattended, advertising to children is no friend to a family. Our laws should reflect the importance of the family, and not seek to weaken community.

A few weeks ago in our alternative newspaper Tucson Weekly, Tom Danehy posted this article about the third commandment. (Or second commandment since he is a Roman Catholic.)

I found it amazing that a Tucson alternative newspaper actually has a good discussion of what it means to take God name in vain. (A better translation would be, ‘Do not use the name of God frivolously.’) The writer focuses on claiming to speak for God where God has not spoken.

If he just went a little further and recognized that we are all guilty of breaking that command which should show us our need of grace.

My wife found this link about the quality of baby food: Cheating Babies: Nutritional Quality and Cost of Commercial Baby Food. Enjoy.

Recently I acquired the board game from eBay (as it is sadly out of print). The box came and everything is in great condition, it hardly looks used.

I was excited to have a physical copy of the rules (instead of just a .pdf file) and delved right in. Man! there are a lot of rules, the rule book is 40-some pages, and the sections of the rule book refer forward to unread sections and back to sections which I need to reread. However, once reading the entire rule book the rules do make sense, even if you need to refer to them occasionally. I look forward to playing the game with some friends I surprisingly convinced to agree to play with me. (Thank you, friends, I appreciate this.)

Some general info about the game: it covers the period from 1517-1555 in Europe. The playable powers are the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, the Protestants, the Papacy, France, England, Venice, Scotland, Genoa, and Hungary-Bohemia. Each of the major powers has their own path to victory. More updates as we play.

Last weekend, we went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum with some friends. Even after being there several times and living in Arizona my whole life I’m astounded by the amount of plants I didn’t know the name for.

I realized that soon Charles would ask me the names of these plants (and animals) and I want to give him better names than ’shrub’, ‘tree’, ‘flower’, and ‘#£!! if I know’. To alleviate my ignorance, I decided to purchase a general field guide for Arizona: The Nature of Arizona.

The book is a great introduction to the diverse wildlife of Arizona, from the Sonoran Desert to the Colorado Plateau. The book is filled with great illustrations of amphibians, arthropods, reptiles, mammals, trees, cacti, and wildflowers. Accompanying each illustration is a succinct description of the species’ characteristics including colouring and shape. I enjoyed the book, it is a great introductory tool to the wildlife of Arizona.

As an introductory book, of course, not all Arizona’s species are listed. In reading the book I discovered I am more interested in identifying plants (they have less of a tendency to hide) and will definitely have to follow it up with a book on plants of the Sonoran Desert.

Carcassonne: The name evokes an idyllic beautiful pastoral French countryside. Or a bunch of tiles with people figurines confidently stradling roads, cities, and fields.

Before I divulge my modification, let me explain a little about the game. Carcassonne is a German-style board game. (Often it is considered a “gateway game” to the style for its quick and simple play.) The game consists of several tiles with parts of a landscape printed on them — field, river, city, road, and monastery. To begin the game, one player places the start tile atop the table, and has the choice to play a meeple. Then play passes onto the next player, who picks up an unknown tile. He or she must place the tile to match the landscape pictures on the existing tile, and may also play a follower (affectionately known as a meeple) on a feature of the tile. No one may place a meeple on a feature already claimed if the feature extends across touching tiles. When features are completed the player with who has the most meeple on the feature scores points.

We bought expansion pack which added new tiles and, more importantly, the capability to add a sixth player. However, the sixth player meeples were gray which we thought an unimaginative colour. Since the original colours were black, yellow, green, blue, and red, we decided purple would make a great addition to those colours. I bought some model paint and a brush and got to work. Surprisingly they required more coats of paint than expected.

Also included in the expansion pack were large meeple which counted as two meeple for the purposes of the game. Inexplicably, the large meeple are only 4 mm taller (sadly, I actually measured this) than a regular meeple. To help distinguish them, Heather used a silver Sharpie™ to mark a crescent on them, which resembles a small smile.

I was given a copy of Susanna Clarke’s debut work 3-4 months ago, but regrettably put it on my shelf and forgot about it. Recently I decided to take a break from my usual fare and ventured to read a work of fiction.

Thus I picked up Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel. The book starts slow but is intriguing, holding promise of more interesting material ahead. Clearly, the author does not want to show her cards all at once. The story begins with a meeting of the Learned Society of York Magicians, discussing the decline of English magic. All of the magicians now in England are theoretical magicians and practical magic has not been seen in England for many years. In the first chapter, one of the principal characters, Gilbert Norrell, is introduced. Mr Norrell is England’s only practical magician. The first section of the book chronicles Mr Norrell’s experience in London as he attempts to restore English magic.

Eventually, a third of the way into the book, the 2nd major character is introduced: Jonathan Strange. The book details their work for the government, a strange prophecy concerning them and the restoration of English magic. Along the way, a woman is brought back to life, connexions between England and Færie are re-established, and the magicians quarrel.

The author has a very interesting writing style. She has elaborate descriptions of characters and settings similar to Charles Dickens. Her wit resembles Jane Austen, wherein she combines keen social observations with a dry sense of humour. To give the story an antiquated feel, she employed archaic spellings of some words, for example, ‘chuse’ and ’sopha’.

The work is quite long, around 1000 pages, but reads very quickly once you get into it. The version I was given was divided into three paperback volumes to facilitate reading. I finished the book in about a week reading at a moderate pace. I enjoyed the work quite a bit and highly recommend it if you enjoy fantasy. As a side note, Susanna Clarke spent a decade writing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell. The rumour is she is working on a sequel which will involve secondary characters from this book; I hope it will be written in less time as I will be sure to pick it up.

This is a cake I would love to come home to. But it’d be such a shame to eat.

I have a found a few posts which will enable the reader to read thru various documents in a year. Sure I’m a little late in composing this list but I’m sure my reader will be able to catch up.

The first is the plan from the ESV Study Bible (an excellent Study Bible, review forthcoming).

The second allows you to read the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards in the course of a year.

And my final link, is for a blog allowing you to read Calvin’s Institutes in a year, with commentary from the folk at Reformation 21

Enjoy.

Our pastor has accepted a call in Houston. The last Sunday of the year was his last Sunday in the pulpit of Desert Springs Presbyterian in Tucson. He concluded an excellent three-part Season of the Incarnation Series. Before I describe the series, let me first describe the man.

Dennis is an amazing pastor. I met him my freshman year (2000) when he was the Campus Minister for Reformed University Fellowship at the University of Arizona. He was very engaging and zealous for the Scriptures and God. Coming out of a fundamentalist/evangelical Baptist church, I had heard of Calvinism but thought the theology to be inconsistent with the Bible. However, I was intrigued and during my first semester I attended one of the RUF Bible Studies. I remember one of our first conversations one evening after the Bible study concluded. Dennis explained he was interested in what Scripture said and that our theology should conform to Scripture. He encouraged me in the study of the Bible and even stated that if we found the Bible was soteriologically Arminian then he would (by his adherence to the text) be compelled to change his position.

Well, from studying the text I came to the conclusion that God is sovereign over salvation and does ordain all things. At first I accepted this position, but didn’t rejoice in it (It was after all a humiliation of man.) Dennis taught that right doctrine leads to doxology and I came to see the glory and freedom of the Gospel.

For my four years in the University, I attended RUF and grew in my Christian faith. Even in my dark times, Dennis loved me and worked to show me the Gospel. He lived in light of the Gospel and tirelessly proclaimed it. He always explained that Christians, just as unbelievers, need to hear the Gospel, and reminded us that we continued in the Christian faith the same way we were inaugurated in it, by the grace of God.

He clearly delineated the Gospel as the news of what God has done for us. God took upon himself all the curses of the covenant; and in the life and death of Jesus Christ he humbled himself and bore the wrath of God for us, that we may be exalted and enjoy restored fellowship with God.

Dennis also expressed the beauty of the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition. Calvin did not stand alone in teaching the sovereignty of God in all things, but he stood upon a previous generation of reformers and was versed in previous theologians going back to the Church Fathers. Many men came after Calvin and the Reformed tradition continued to flourish. God has been gracious to us in history to give us a legacy of godly men throughout the ages (even godly men of other traditions).

Dennis was RUF minister for five years and in 2005 accepted a call to the church I attend, Desert Springs Presbyterian. He faithfully exegeted the Scriptures weekly (in season and out of season) and humbly showed forth what a great God we have, and how great his salvation is. The church was shown the centrality of Word and Sacrament under his leadership. In the service, he often explained the liturgy so it would not become rote. In all things, Dennis emboldened us in the Gospel and God used him to transform our church into a more outward-oriented, missional church.

God has used Dennis mightily in my life and in Tucson; he is a giant among men and although this chapter of Dennis’s legacy is closed, God will use him powerfully in Texas as well. True, it is sad to see Dennis leave, but I believe, however, that God has prepared us for this, and it will be exciting to see the impact of Dennis’s legacy as we call a new pastor.

…Oh, yes, I was going to discuss his last triad of sermons: each of the three focuses on a birth: the birth of Isaac, the birth of Samson, and the birth of Christ. The first two foreshadow the latter, and discuss certain themes which find their fulfilment in Christ. Interspersed between these was a Christmas Eve sermon on Galatians 4:4-7 concerning our adoption as sons; and that God has not forsaken or abandoned us, nor has he left us alone. The Christmas Eve service included readings from all of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation to show the history of salvation.

Without further ado:
Unto Us a Son is Given (Isaac)
Unto Us a Child is Born (Samson)
Christ the Saviour is Born (Jesus)

As a concluding thought: Dennis is a man who is intoxicated with the ale of the Gospel and exhorted us to drink deeply of that draught. I am pleased to count him as my spiritual father.

My friend Sean called me and challenged me to a little competition as to who could create the best Christmas poem. (I later found out that he had already written his before calling me.) I accepted and finished late yesterday. Enjoy and do leave comments as to what you like about each poem. (You may also vote for best.) Maybe next year more can join in the competition.

The Incarnation
©2008 Sean McGinty

The birthing cry announces the situation.
Into space, time and this dreary ghetto town
Comes something new, at least from our perception.
Joy, hope, fear embodied has to us come down.

This child will bring about the end,
In one way or another, of all.
The turning point of the immutable trend
Set about by the most treacherous of falls.

Our friends and lovers have failed and left.
All our expectations have crashed down on our heads.
God help us, the poor, the lonely, the bereft,
The sick, the tired, the living, the dead.

We who swallow our tears cry out
And tonight we are answered.
Blinding hosts invade to tell about
The long sought cure for our cancer.

These winter rifts will soon be healed.
The tattered things, certainly mended.
Tombs of every sort will be unsealed,
And this aching darkness ended.

Peace upon our wretched hearts,
Peace upon our addled brains.
Sin resolved by our Lord’s art
Of drawing mercy from His pain.

Christmas Chiasmus
©2008 Christopher Hall

And the Word became flesh.
The King of Glory descending,
Took on humanity.
Unplumbed of mysteries;
In pure humility 
He left his throne condescending.
Human and Divine mesh.

Born fallen man to redeem,
Like us in every respect;
Unlike Adam he obeyed
The Saviour committed no wrong;
And the whole Law he portrayed; 
Yes, sin did he reject.
Repealed Adam’s curse as theme.

Agreed before all time
Mercy to shower mankind.
God’s wrath on God pourèd;
Our covenant curses he took;
His ire now assuagèd.
Grace toward us God aligned;
God Triune in full rhyme.

This mystery ushers us praise;
Praise for his complete redemption!
The Trinity in Unity,
Exalt the Triune God who secured life!
Lo, Unity in Trinity.
Praise for God’s wrought salvation!
In song let us our voices raise.

Works we could not do;
Adam fully did deprave
Seed, Hope is Christ, keeping
Covenant blessings does he give
To his chosen. Sweeping
Second Adam burst the grave;
His pure work makes all new.

By his perfect life and death,
Our guilt he exchanged.
Evil broken evermore,
The Saviour left undone no good.
His people’s sin he bore
And our nature he changed.
His righteousness bequeaths breath.

God and man: Jesus,
Second Person of Trinity.
Come to earth, humbly born,
In hypostatic union,
To be counted forlorn.
Son of God from eternity,
And he dwelt among us.

We borrowed the game Khet from our friends, the Pixleys. The concept of this game is to direct a laser beam, using mirrored pieces, onto the opponent’s Pharaoh. This is not as easy as it seems; on our first game my wife wiped out her own Pharaoh with a misdirected mirror.

Khet has four types of pieces: an unreflective obelisk, a reflective pyramid, a doubly reflective djed, and the pharaoh. The pieces may move one square in any direction or rotate 90 degrees. The game instructions suggest three opening scenarios, but the players may create their own. On each turn, a player must move a piece of theirs and fire their laser beam. Since each player fires a laser beam, there are two paths that must be watched for an attack. If a laser beam shines on an unreflective surface of a piece, that piece is removed from the board.

What is interesting is that although the game is quite unlike chess in the mechanics, some of the strategy translates over. For example, there are pins, forks, and other such scenarios. Embarrassingly enough my dad, who is an avid chess player, learnt the game and actually won our third game.

Khet is a very fun game, with simple rules and complex strategy. I’m looking forward to acquiring the beam splitter and tower expansion packs.

A few weeks ago, my friend Sean lent me the book Planet Narnia by Michael Ward. The book discusses an overarching hidden structure of the Narniad, a veiled tertiary meaning unifying the series.

As might be inferred from the title of this post, M Ward proposes that each book is defined a Ptolemaic astrological planet. When Sean first told me the thesis and encouraged me to read the book, I was rather sceptical. Narnia has been out 50-some years and just now someone has found a Grand Unified Theory of Narnia! However, I figured it’d be an interesting read at least, and began reading Planet Narnia.

The author skillfully defends his thesis. Michael Ward looks at a variety of Lewisian literature to glean how the planets are understood in the rest of Lewis’s writings. He especially draws on the poem “Planets” and the Ransom Trilogy. In so doing M Ward coins a new word, donegality, (Donegal being a favourite holidaying spot for Lewis.) which involves using symbolism to create an atmosphere for a work while imparting it with a Christological meaning.

Michael Ward illustrates not only major themes of each book, (e.g., the Jovian Spring of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) but several details in each book (e.g., the inclusion of the minotaur among the monsters of the White Which) that serve to substantiate his thesis. In each book the author also discussed how the attributes of each planet serve to illustrate Christ.

After reading the application and explanation of Jupiter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as a mental exercise I attempted to place each book with each planet and correclyt matched four of the remaining six. (I missed Venus, probably due to the necessity of cloaking venereal themes in children’s literature.) As the litmus test of a theory is its predictive prowess, I am thoroughly convinced that this astrological theme is the hidden structure of the Narniad

An excellent article by Sinclair B. Ferguson on the Ligonier Ministries Blog.

I saw this on a few of the blogs I read and thought I should hop on the bandwagon.

And on the trivial, humourous side of this blog comes this story:

A new microwave appeared at work recently. This equipment has far more features than a microwave ought to have and its control panel looks like that of a graphing calculator. However, I thought the most peculiar thing was that when the microwave was done the display screen ran the message, ‘Enjoy your food.’

I was immediately reminded of the motto ‘Share and Enjoy’

“Share and Enjoy” is the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints Devision, which now covers the major land masses of three medium-sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years.

The motto stands—or rather stood—in three mile high illuminated letters near the complaints Department spaceport of Eadrax. Unfortunately its weight was such that shortly after it was erected, the ground beneath the letters caved in and they dropped for nearly half their length through the offices of many talented young Complaints executives—now deceased.

The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the local language, to read “Go stick your head in a pig,” and are no longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration.

—The Restuarant at the End of the Universe—Douglas Adams

The message reminds me of the Genuine People Personality Feature of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, of which the depressive robot Marvin was a prototype. Other machines with GPP were the friendly ship’s computer and the neurotic elevators. Why do I need a microwave to tell me to enjoy my food?

Will our machines eventually have something similar to GPP? Probably not, as even Microsoft learned from Clippy’s failure. However, one hopes that manufacturers read satires of their products and trend in appliances.

Yesterday at Desert Springs Presbyterian Church, our pastor was out of town and Rev Shaynor Newsome preached on 1 Samuel 17: the story of David and Goliath.

Now, since becoming Reformed, I know that all of Scripture (including the Old Testament) points to Christ. I have even read this story and how it fits into the redemptive-historical narrative. But hearing it in a sermon is quite different. How thankful I am that I am not to ’slay the giants in my life’, but that the anointed one has won victory for me and defeats all his and my enemies.

Here is the link to the sermon audio.

Today is this blog’s anniversary. While I have not yet posted part two of “Revelation and Epistemology“, I have obtained Michael Poylani’s book, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy and it is high on my list of books I plan to read.

In the the previous year, many interesting and wonderful things occurred that I did not foresee. Primarily, I became a father. I have observed Charles develop from a unknown twinkling in my eye, to a 10-pound newborn, to a 2-month old active infant. We bought our first house, and are slowly transforming it into a more beautiful place. True, not everything has been peachy or on (my) schedule, but looking back on the past year, I must say God has blessed us very much.

To celebrate, I have changed the name and look of this blog, and hope to add to the widgets on the side soon (most improvements are planned to add links to media I find enjoyable). If you know of any cool items you’d like to see on the sidebar or think I’d be interested in, let me know. Also, feel free to comment on the changes.

Well here’s a look back and a look ahead:
Some of my favourite posts of last year:
Locust, the BBC, and Repentance
Xenophobia and Talk Radio
A Small Story in a Day
Pædobaptism: A Sign and Seal of Covenantal Grace
Ibid, the Greatest Unsung Writer
Carbon Offsets: The New Papal Indulgence

And upcoming posts:
Marvin and the Microwave
Planet Narnia
Bourbon: Not Just a County in Kentucky (Matt, I probably could use your help researching this post)
John Calvin, the Quinticentenary
Revelation and Epistemology Part II

If you’re interested (and 5% of my readership is, along as I’m included as part of my readership), here is a list of names my wife and I brainstormed while trying to find a new name for this blog. I apologize for the less than optimal resolution, but rest assured that a higher resolution would not hinder reading my chirography any more than the current resolution.

C T Hall Brainstorms a New Blog name.

Heather and I were browsing iPhone apps and saw an ad for Urbanspoon.com. Not having an iPhone, we went to the website and found it was fairly cool. The site contains reviews of restaurants (written by critics and users), and allows you to vote on if you like or dislike the restaurant. The city of your interest is divided into neighbourhoods and a feature even allows you to search close to an address. Next time we want to find a good close restaurant, we’ll be sure to check it out.

I’ve come across some interesting blog posts concerning election and politics:

On the Virtue of Spoiling Ballot Papers

[Thoughts on]President-Elect Obama

Natural Law, the Two Kingdoms, and Homosexual Marriage
For more information on Natural Law, q.v., Natural Law and Light in the Reformed Confessions and Is Natural Law “Theocratic”?

Some Initial Thoughts on Praying for President-Elect Obama

A Four-Year-Old and the Presidency

I hope you enjoy.

I thought you, readers in my section of the blogosphere, would especially enjoy this Demotivational Poster.

Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.

This past weekend I finished reading John Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion. Five or six years ago I began reading while at the University. It is as if a journey has drawn to a close.

As my reader no doubt knows, the Institutes are Calvin’s systematic theology. Better histories have been written of the work so I won’t bore my reader here. Likewise I will not attempt to write a full review of Calvin’s magnum opus.

When I reflect on the work, I am amazed by the depth of John Calvin and his knowledge of the Word and the Church Fathers. Calvin packs much information into his paragraphs; frequently one has to reread him a few times to grasp what he is saying. It also helps to read him with a dictionary in hand, but where else would one learn the words ‘concupiscence’ and ‘anagogic’ and more than score of other words?

The sovereignty of God features prominently in this book. Calvin’s writing is saturated with this. Not only did God sovereignly work creation, but he sovereignly works redemption. Salvation is all of God, our faith (given to us by God) receives his gift of grace.

Some of the many excellent passages include the beginning where Calvin asserts that true knowledge of self leads to true knowledge of God leads to true knowledge of self. The more we see our own sin, it causes us to look outside ourselves for the remedy, and the more that we look to Christ and his grace, the more it causes us to be aware of our evil.

Calvin also has great sections on how we receive grace from Christ and the great benefits of justification and adoption. Truly God has lavished his riches upon us in Christ.

A wonderful read, Calvin was a student of the Word and marvelled at the depth of the grace of God. May we take this spirit into our own time and enjoy the work of a sovereign God!

Helvetica is the world’s most common font. Designed in 1957, it gained wide adoption in the 1960’s as corporations and governments wanted a modern typeface. The remarkable story of this font (including its predecessors and derivatives) is expertly relayed in the 2007 documentary Helvetica.

This film traces not only the rise of Helvetica but also American corporate advertising, European style, and even contrasts modernism and postmodernism (at least in typography).

Much of the movie’s content is relayed through a series of interviews. Among these interviews one gains much information on the subject as several typographers of various generations, advertisers, and design artists. Some of these people are very passionate about their jobs; one stated that Helvetica was the font of the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

My favourite part of the movie was the contrast between the modernists and postmodernists. While the modernists all loved the font because it was transparent ‘like a crystal goblet’ (the font did not get in the way of the message), the postmodernists disliked it for the same reason. True to their suspicion of the metanarrative, the postmodernists decry the existence of a universally suitable typeface.

In conclusion, the movie is well worth watching, even my wife (who wondered why I added the movie to our Netflix queue) thought it was interesting.

Some links:
Where I first heard of the documentary
An Atlantic article about specialized fonts

While I was on paternity leave I read the book A Case for Amillennialism by Kim Riddlebarger. (Yes, you get strange questions from nurses reading that book in the hospital. Oddly, our midwife had heard of the subject.) Having previously rejected the dispensationalist schema, I had not concerned myself with eschatology for a while. Last year, I read Hendrickson’s More than Conquerors, an overview of Revelation, and was intrigued.

Heather bought me a copy of the book for my birthday. I enjoyed the book for its clarity of presentation and thoroughness in comparing other eschatological ideas.

A Case for Amillennialism is 246 pages, not counting end notes and is divided into four sections. The first section defines terms used in eschatological discussions, surveys eschatological view, and explains the hermeneutics of interpreting Biblical prophecy; the second explains amillennialism in context of Biblical and theological concerns; the third section contains expositions of Biblical passages; the last part is an overview of the major millennial positions.

The first section defines terms such eschatology, millennium, rapture, preterism, and futurism. There is also a survey of the four major views on the millennium: dispensational premillennialism, historic premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism. The first section is rounded out with a chapter that gives guidance on reading all of Scripture, including prophecy, as Christocentric. Dr Riddlebarger contrasts the Reformed hermeneutic ‘the analogy of faith’ with the dispensational hermeneutic (which seeks to interpret prophecy as ‘literally’ as possible and maintains a sharp distinction in the people of God, between Israel and the Church).

The second section lays the foundation of the case for amillennialism being the Biblical eschatology. The section starts with an explanation of covenant theology in the Old Testament and how it relates to eschatology. In the Old Testament, the prophets looked forward to the coming of the Messiah who would reverse the curse of Adam. The kings, prophets, and priests of Israel pointed to the one future man who would hold all three offices. Furthermore, the prophets prophesied to a better covenant than that of Moses. In the fullness of time, we see in the New Testament, Christ is the one who was foretold. He is true Israel, David’s greater son, the true temple, a better sacrifice, the mediator of better covenant, and a surer Word. When Jesus preached he spoke of two ages, this current age and the age to come, ‘the kingdom of God is nigh’. The current age is corrupt and temporal; the age to come is pure and eternal. Yet, Jesus says something amazing, that is that the age to come has broken into this age; the kingdom of God is here although not consummated. We live in an eschatological tension, ‘now and not yet’. The course of history is now bringing us to the final coming of Jesus when this age shall pass away and the fullness of the kingdom of God shall be revealed.

In the third section contains expositions of passages of Scripture which are often used to cite support for one’s eschatological opinion. The passages discussed are Daniel’s ‘seventy sevens’ (a proof-text of dispensationalists), the Olivet Discourse (used by dispensationalists and preterists alike), Romans 11 (used in discussions of if there is a [and if so, what the] future is for Israel), and Revelation 20.1-10 (concerning the nature of a thousand).

The final section of the book gives some detail concerning the strengths and weakness of each major eschatological position: premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism, and preterism.

Throughout the book Dr Riddlebarger persuasively presents amillennialism as the most Biblical eschatological system. It alone is adequately congruent with the eschatological tension of the New Testament. Now and not yet very well explains Jesus’ word that his kingdom is near, but we have not reached his second coming. A Case for Amillennialism explains that Christ is reigning over his kingdom now; this is hope that our God is sovereign working all things for our good. We look forward now to the full realization of Christ’s coming with his second coming.

Having been previously dispensationalist, Dr Riddlebarger’s exposition of Daniel 9 was very illuminating. Though the dispensationalists claim they are being faithful to the text by interpreting the Bible literally, often they don’t consider the genre of the text and interpret literalistically ignoring the subtler meanings of the text. In some cases, such as Daniel 9, dispensationalists change the meaning of the passage. Nowhere does Daniel speak of a gap between the 69th and 70th ‘seven’, yet it is crucial to dispensationalism and pretribulational rapture. Likewise, the Apostle Paul teaches that on the last day, when Christ returns and the believers are caught up to him, “[T]he Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.” It seems that the plain meaning of this text is that it will be very obvious the Lord has returned; he has not just come for a secret rapture of which only believer’s will be aware.

The only thing I wish for in the book is that the final section would be longer. Dr Riddlebarger could have gone into more depth in contrasting the positions. Fortunately, he has an extensive bibliography, so that the reader can find more information on the subjects of the book.

In conclusion, Dr Riddlebarger aptly makes the case that amillennialism is most consistent with a covenantal Christocentric reading of Scripture.

Let us always find Christ on every page of Scripture.

——————–

My mother-in-law found A Book Lover’s Journal, which is a great idea for keeping track of the books I read. I’m pleased to have this book as the first entry in the journal.

A first draft of this blog post.

A new liquor mega-store recently opened on my side of town: Total Wine. The store is the size of a small grocery store, and has a great selection of wine, as well as beer and spirits.

The store is well laid out and it is easy to find what you are looking for. A map is provided at the front of the store, as well as a buying guide. There are wines from all regions of the world, each taking at least an aisle worth. Additionally, there are several aisles of different varietals. The store has a generous selection of imported and craft beers in divers styles. Total Wine has a good selection of exotic liquor such as arak and absinthe, and I was able to find my preferred amaretto (Lazzaroni). They also have a humidor and wine tasting (which I have not had the opportunity to try).

How does this new liquor store compare to other liquor stores in Tucson? Plaza on Campbell has a distinct ethos created by narrow aisles and tight spaces. Although it may not be the case, Plaza seems like it has a larger selection of craft and imported beer. BevMo is another liquor mega-store chain and it seems on first visit the prices are comparable. BevMo (at least the one in town on Broadway and Wilmot) is somewhat smaller. Total Wine does have a larger selection of wine, but seems to have a somewhat smaller selection of spirits. Interestingly enough a new BevMo is being built a mile north of Total Wine.

Overall, I enjoyed my short visit and am sure I will be back again.

Stephan Pastis compares the two in today’s Pearls Before Swine.

18 Sept 2008

Having listened to The White Horse Inn for some time I decided to search for other Reformed podcasts. (The White Horse Inn is great and still my favourite but they only publish one hour per week.) In my search for a good Reformed podcast, I’ve come across two good sites. While I’m sure there are many others, I’ve found these two to be helpful.

The first is Christ the Center from Castle Church I’m currently listening to their back issues; they’ve covered great issues such as the Federal Vision controversy and the atonement. The podcast also has episodes devoted to biographies of notable men such as Augustine and Machen. Helpfully, the beginning of each discussion includes commentaries on relevant or new books. Christ the Center is published every week.

The second, Saints and Sinners from URC Learning, features a panel of pastors from United Reformed Churches in So-Cal discussing various topics. The strength of these podcast is that they are not overly cerebral and are shorter, being between 10-30 minutes long. Sometimes, however, the panel seems less than compassionate at times.

Go check them out, you won’t be disappointed.

I’ve decided to add a new category to this blog: book reviews. It seems the few I’ve done in the past were helpful to people. I’m just about to finish Calvin’s Institutes so I’ll have that up in a few weeks. Also I’ve added a side bar on the right hand column listing books I recommended linking to where you may obtain them. (Not all these books have I reviewed on this site.) In time I intend to include other media reviews. For now though, enjoy browsing and let me know what you think.

With additional news exposing the Pope of Green, I’ve decided to write about the relation of buying carbon offsets to the papal indulgences of the sixteenth century.

The Popes authorized the sale of indulgences to fund the cathedrals and other projects in Rome. By buying an indulgence one could reduce the amount of punishment for one’s sins, or one’s deceased relatives’ sins (by reducing one’s time in purgatory). By the sixteenth century many unscrupulous indulgence sellers preyed upon the ignorant and poor. Perhaps the most famous was Johann Teztel, to whom the lyric, “As a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs,” is attributed. In the Reformation, Martin Luther argued that true repentance is preferred over the selling of indulgences, and the purpose of good works is not to better ourselves or our relation with God but is to be directed toward our neighbours.

Likewise, in our day, individuals (and corporations) may buy carbon offsets to balance out their pollution. A vast storehouse filled with the merit of environmentally virtuous companies is available for those of us who pollute the earth. Disregarding how this merit is obtained, does this not encourage an easy solution to polluting entities? No longer is careful (and difficult) stewardship required, but our environmental sin is absolved with the stroke of a pen. The purchaser of the carbon credit is no longer required to live environmentally responsibly but may use the supererogatory works of the more pollution-responsible entities.

If Johann Tetzel were alive today would he write:

As the carbon offset is traded,
Air and water around are cleansèd.

and receive such response:

Carbon trading on the market
makes a profitable racket

(Well, I’m not going to win any prizes for poetry.)

Recently I ordered this book from Westminster Bookstore for our expected child.

I enjoy this book by Sally Lloyd-Jones immensely. Unlike many other collections of Bible stories for children, The Jesus Storybook Bible has as its predominant theme the account of Jesus and how God saves for himself a people. Even the subtitle alludes to this, Every Story Whispers His Name.

The introduction (cleverly titled ‘The Story and The Song’) begins with God declaring his love for us and implanting his image in us. The introduction continues to explain that the Bible is God’s revelation to mankind. Being God’s revelation to us, the Bible is not a book of rules or a book of heroes to emulate. Rather The Jesus Storybook states that the Bible is about God and what he has done (thus not about us and what we’re to do or rules to obey) and the so-called heroes of the Bible are flawed. In its own words, ‘The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne — everything — to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy that has com true in real life! ¶ You see the best thing about this Story is — it’s true. ¶ There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling on Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.’

Additionally, each episode includes a paragraph explaining how the chapter ties in with this metanarrative of the Bible.

The illustrations by Jago are wonderfully done in a unique [digital] coloured pencil style. The only caveat is that the book’s illustrations include depictions of Jesus. Although Jesus is (fortunately) not depicted as a handsome, blue-eyed, Anglo-Saxon male, the images run counter to historic (confessional) Reformed teaching on the matter*. However with the creative use of some self-adhesive paper notes, this problem should be rectified.

Overall, I’m sure Baby Hall will enjoy hearing and (eventually) reading this wonderful book.

* Future blog post, perhaps.

Just as old or bleary-eyed men and those with weak vision, if you thrust before them a most beautiful volume, even if they recognize it to be some sort of writing, yet can scarcely construe two words, but with the aid of spectacles will begin to read distinctly; so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.

—Institutes of Christian Religion: (I. vi. 1): John Calvin

Pixar has done it again. WALL•E is the film studio’s ninth major picture. All of its films have been commercial successes, and most of them this reviewer has thoroughly enjoyed. (In the interest of full disclosure: I was not impressed with Cars [it was an alright film but I didn't feel it was up to Pixar's standards.] and I thought Antz’s storyline was more complex and interesting than A Bug’s Life.)

I was eager to see the film, of course. A few days before I went to the cinema I read some of the reviews from rottentomatoes.com. Most of the reviews were positive, but I made sure to read a few negative reviews. The negative reviews complained of the dark vision the film has of earth’s future. (Although one complained that while WALL•E has an environmentally-minded message, it ends with gratuitous optimism as the environmental problems are ‘magically wiped away’.)

When I saw the movie with my wife on Independence Day, I was very impressed. Andrew Stanton does a great job of telling a story with sparse dialogue. This is one of the many similarities the film shares with 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Among others: one character is a nod to HAL, and the piece Also Sprach Zarathustra plays at a pivotal moment.) Much of the story is told through visuals and music, reminiscent of the silent films of yore (although with much better computer graphics). The robots communicate to each other in tones which surprisingly convey meaning well. The film also playfully interacts with today’s technology; as the solar-battery within WALL•E becomes fully charged, the audience hears the familiar Apple start-up sound.

The plot is a love tale between two robots in a post-apocalyptic world, who go to great lengths for each other and end up reuniting humanity with earth. WALL•E is a wonderfully-told, redemptive story. The movie lauds such virtues as sacrifice, community, and love. So poignant is the tale that my wife at one point was moved to tears for the protagonist.

WALL•E is great cinematic art. Everything recommends it: its visual style, story, and characters. It is well worth the money to go see the film in cinema, and I’m sure I will be purchasing the DVD when it comes out.

Well I don’t feel it’d be right to end the post without saying something about the short film that preceded the film. ‘Presto’ is a fun short depicting the antics of a magician’s rabbit. Like many Pixar shorts, the film is entirely without dialogue. The short was evocative of Bugs Bunny and his antics. ‘Presto’ was entertaining and served as a good prelude to the full-length film which followed.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Kim Riddlebarger’s blog. After perusing the site, I have found it a valuable resource for Reformed doctrine, especially eschatology (the study of final times/things). And for us former dispensationalists he provides us charts of different eschatological chronologies.

Especially helpful are his sermons on the Book of Revelation and resources on amillennialism. Having rejected dispensational premillenialism, I became an amillennialist by default, but did not really know how to explain the belief.

But not all of his blog deals with end times. He has a series on the Belgic Confession (Which I haven’t fully checked out yet; I need some Belgian beer to imbibe with the Confession.) and is a series in process discusses the cannons of Dor(drech)t. An interesting (and amusing) part of the website are his humourous captions on news. Recent groupings included a list of ‘things you won’t see in a Reformed Church’. Dr Riddlebarger’s ‘Who said that?’ section provides a chance to guess the author of a (usually) controversial quote.

As a final note, some excellent print commentaries on Revelation are Hendrickson’s More than Conquerers and Græme Goldsworthy Gospel and Revelation available as part of the Goldsworthy Trilogy.

A new study Bible is coming out in October: The ESV (English Standard Version) Study Bible. While probably not as ‘reformed’ as the Reformed Study Bible it boasts an impressive 2700+ pages. I’m excited to have Dr Ryken’s notes for the literary qualities of scripture. In addition, I am pleased with the ESV text, having purchased my first when it came out in 2001. The text is well-suited for reading aloud, flowing much smoother than my prefered version at the time the NASB, yet is a word for word translation.

A few days late in announcing perhaps, but we closed on a house. Find some pictures here. More to be posted at the Halls of Tucson Blog as work progresses.

Much of this material came out of an e-mail conversation I had with my good friend Sean a week or so back. As usual, I have been busy (expect a new post on my busyness on 2 June) and have not blogged.

And without further ado: a review of Prince Caspian:

I found the film entertaining and interesting. The filmmakers adroitly used rich visual effects and the actors were cast appropriately. Although the story is told well, it is not the same story C.S. Lewis told. (Or rather it differs significantly.)

The enjoyable parts of the movie include the vivid scenery. It illustrates the book’s descriptions rather adeptly. (Lewis was not as detailed as Tolkien in his description, so some of the more fanciful locations [e.g., Miraz's castle] go beyond what I imagined them but don’t contradict the text.)

Among the many changes in the film from the book, one stands out as a very useful change for telling the story in a different medium: the change from Miraz as Lord Protector to King of Narnia during the timeline of the film instead of sometime earlier as in the book. With this change, one gets to see how Miraz assumed the throne instead of it merely being told in a flashback. I also like the inclusion of the disappearance of the lords loyal to Caspian IX. However, I wish the film had anticipated Voyage of the Dawn Treader and mentioned the 7 lords which were sent on impossible missions overseas. Another minor change I liked was the exiting of Caspian X through a wardrobe in his bedroom; a nice touch tying this into the first film.

Many of the film’s changes were not only unnecessary, but detrimental to the story of Lewis. Many of these changes seem involve variations to characters in the film.

The director Andrew Adamson seems confused about Aslan’s character. While his presence is abbreviated in the films, Adamson puts lines into Lucy’s mouth, ‘Peter, don’t you remember who really defeated the White Witch?’ So it appears that he suspects that Aslan is central to the story. On the other hand, he abbreviates Aslan’s dialogue, omits his appearance with Bacchus, and changes his role in freeing the town of Beruna. Aslan’s lines are also strangely altered; the line I like best from the book records Aslan’s response to Lucy’s observation that he is bigger, ‘Every year you grow, you will find me bigger.’ However, this is rendered ‘Every year you grow, so shall I,’ in the film. As Sean writes, ‘The book’s line indicates how Lucy’s perception of Aslan changes as she grows in faith, while the movie’s line makes it sound like Aslan is somehow dependent on Lucy for growth.’ I concur. Aslan is partially stripped of his deity in the movie.

In another example, Peter is no longer the noble High King of the book. Nothing in the book alludes to his getting in fights at school or saying things reminiscent of Nikabrik like, ‘We’ve waited for Aslan long enough.’ It is almost as if the modern (post-modern?) movie cannot have a hero who isn’t ‘complex’ or doesn’t have a ‘dark side’. As has been pointed out on several websites this is akin to Faramir’s character being butchered in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. Conversely, Susan loses her negative side, and has a romantic interest with Caspian thrown in. This will make it harder to understand why Susan does not appear in The Last Battle.

Overall, the movie was entertaining as a standalone product. Nevertheless the movies takes significant departures from the book and despiritualizes Lewis’s work. Plan to read the book alongside (or in lieu of) the movie.

And for the sake of completeness a mention of the symbolism in the book cannot be ignored. Keep in mind however, that Lewis was not a strict allegorist. Prince Caspian references both sanctification, q.v., Lucy and Aslan’s dialogue above, and a telling of the recovery of true religion (perhaps specifically the Protestant Reformation). After the disappearance of Aslan (Christ) and the Pevensies, Narnia (the Church) fell into decay until about 1500 years later, when Caspian (Luther, perhaps?) discovered Old Narnia and the Pevensies (true religion and the teaching of the Apostles) restored Narnia to its rightful place (the Church to proper worship). Of course, I paint with broad strokes and not every detail will fit this schema. Feel free to discuss in the comments section.

And lastly a few links:
Modern Reformation’s Review
Christianity Today’s Review
NPR stories

My friend Phil wrote an interesting article about this site Walk Score. Walk Score measures a locale’s ‘walkability’, I’m excited because for where I am buying a house in Tucson (oh I will have to blog about this but until then enjoy this sneak preview)

near Shannon and River has an alright walkability score for being in the suburbs; even more exciting is that the intersection at River and La Cholla is a developing commercial zone. We’ll have to get bicycles to make this even more accessible.

While I’m advertising other websites here is one about the housing bailouts: Angry Renter

Many thanks to Dale Ralph Davis for the title of this post which I borrowed from a chapter in his Judges: Such a Great Salvation. We are reading through the book for personal devotions, and it is amazing to see the patience God has for his people.

In this passage (chapter 9) we see that the oppression of Israel is not from solely without. Abimelech the son of Gideon, killed his father’s other children gained a kingship and oppressed Israel. Sin is from within, Israel had forgotten their God and he left them to be subjugated from within and without.

The title of this post comes from Jotham’s (Abimelech’s brother who escaped death) parable against electing a worthless man as king. He stated (in parable) that like a bramble is good for fire, their poor choice for a leader would come back to burn them.

Yet God is sovereign and cares for his people even in trying political times. Abimelech would eventually be killed and God would raise up other judges to rule over his people.

We have a new blog for our growing family! Check out our Halls of Tucson website. I have reproduced my pregnancy and fatherhood posts on the new site, and the site contains other fun things such as links to our registry and friends’ baby sites.

I hope you enjoy the adventures of the House Hall.

Just this week I finished playing Myst IV; it was an enjoyable game with several fun puzzles (and a few irritating ones). I played the previous three Myst games several years ago.

This game mechanics were similar to Myst III in that you linked to nodes where you could view 360º in any direction (as opposed to the stills of Myst and Riven). Zip mode was redone, now you can pull a menu and zip to a particular location, instead of bypassing a few nodes.

The story of this game involves the two brothers, Sirrus and Achenar, escaping from their prison ages and capturing their sister, Yeesha. Like other Myst games, the player must solve various puzzles to complete the game. Many of these puzzles were similar in difficulty to those in prior Myst games. Achenar’s age, Haven, was very acoustically oriented, much like the Selenitic Age in Myst I. Small primate creatures had to be called by name using a machine with rotating dials to produce differently pitched sound.

The final age, Serenia was quite bizarre with several of the puzzles happening in a parallel dream world. To avoid giving too much away the final puzzle was challenging but fun to logically fit all the pieces in their proper place.

I am looking forward to buying Myst V soon.

While often quoted in several fields of discipline, the prolific author Ibid has no anthology of collected works and no biography. All that is known of him is from other authors’ quotations. In spite of this paucity, much can be gleaned from an author by the quotations that survive.

The works of Ibid originate in great antiquity, he is quoted alongside Homer. Judging by the amount he is quoted, his works rank among the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle. His works on religion are cited as frequently as Moses, Zarathustra, and the authors of the Vedas.

While the subject Ibid commented on in the ancient world were diverse, as time progressed, he expanded his interests. Not only is he quoted among the doctors of the Church, but also the doctors of medicine. In the modern era his quotes encompass anthropology, athletics, biology, literature, metallurgy, parenting, poetry, technology, and zymurgy to name but a few subjects.

With such a longevity of writing and broad spectrum of knowledge, a strong argument may be made that Ibid is not one writer but several. Perhaps there is a secret society of Ibid, never openly publishing its works but from time to time allowing authors to quote various passages.

However, this concept seems unlikely, not least because Ibid frequently contradicts himself; authors with opposing viewpoints frequently cite Ibid to support their position (or detract from their opponents’) With such different quotations, qualifications for entrance into the secret society would be quite lax and we probably would have heard of the cabal before reading of it in an obscure blog. Perhaps each of us is Ibid (as long as we’ve been quoted twice consecutively).

The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’
—Psalm 14

If there were no God, there would be no atheists.
—G.K. Chesterton

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.
—C.S. Lewis

Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God.
—Tom Stoppard

The last issue of Modern Reformation (March—April 08) discusses the ‘New Atheism’. This new atheism is represented by such persons as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens who truculently peddle their religion vehemently assailing any opposing ideas. While the positions of the New Atheists are no different from the Atheism during the Enlightenment and similar hostility toward Christianity and deist religion is found in Marx and Nietzsche, the difference lies in the agenda: proselytisation.
The New Atheists see religion as dangerous and threatening to civilization. With the obvious example of modern day (radical) Islam and its association with terrorism, they search history and find examples of violence in other religions. Now while Christians have and will do terrible things in the name of heaven, just because one (or a group) fails to understand his worldview does not mean the worldview is invalid. Al Gore travelling in a private aeroplane does not necessarily disprove climate change. (Concerning church history, I quote Craig Parton’s article ‘God Does Not Believe in Atheists’, ‘If the history of the church was only a history of “sweetness and light,” it would refute a central and repeated teaching found in the biblical data—i.e., the depravity of man.’ In this the fundamental (new) atheist has all the zeal and ambition as a jihadist, Hindu nationalist, or a Bible thumping Christian fundamentalist.

Beneath the surface of these … arguments [for or against God] are some enormously complex issues; and the side that one takes — after weighing all the evidence and sometimes regardless of where the evidence really points — is still largely determined by the position one originally takes.
—Adam Francisco ‘The New Atheism’

Several arguments are presented in favour or against God. Ultimately, however, empirical evidence cannot prove (or disprove) God. Which introduces us to presuppositions; presuppositions are beliefs which a person tacitly subscribes from which her arguments follow. The atheist presupposes empiricism: only that which may be discovered by the senses is true. (Yet one cannot empirically prove empiricism.) In addition, she presupposes naturalism: natural causes explain all things, there is no place for the supernatural. Therefore when presented with God-in-history Jesus Christ, the atheist immediately rejects him without considering the evidence because it does not fit into her weltanschauung; her presuppositions will not allow it.
Therefore, the proper place to deconstruct empty philosophies is at their roots. Naturalism systematically discounts the accounts of Jesus’s life because it cannot consider supernatural explanations; the material is all there is. Miracles do not exist because they do not exist. Likewise, empiricism cannot be empirically proven but rests on deeper presuppositions. Presuppositions such as: the universe is understandable; our senses do not mislead us; everything that can be known can be discovered by the senses. These presuppositions must be taken on faith as they cannot be proved or disproved. It is an interesting note that we do not relate to our friends on the basis of the third presupposition.

Fundamentally, the desire to dethrone God and enthrone one’s self runs deep in the being of fallen humanity. While atheists oft charge that Christians’ belief in God is because of wish-projection or similar psychobabble whereby they imply that we wish for there to be an orderly universe with a purpose for us in it, we find a god who orders the universe and provides purpose and plan. However quite the opposite may be true; an atheist longs to establish himself as final authority and not submit to another and, behold, he finds no God, no purpose, and no final judgement.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? ‘I the LORD search the heart and test the kidneys, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.’
—Jeremiah 17

When we engage our atheist friends let us direct our attention at the core of the matter, the presuppositions, and pray, for unless the Holy Spirit removes the cold heart of stone and inserts a living heart of flesh, no one will embrace God and truth.

Now by the title, one may think that I’m contrasting and comparing a thing against itself or that this is distinction without difference. But let me first define my terms:

profanity |prəˈfanətē; prō-|
blasphemous or obscene language : an outburst of profanity.
• a swear word; an oath.
irreligious or irreverent behavior.

vulgar |ˈvəlgər|
lacking sophistication or good taste; unrefined : the vulgar trappings of wealth.
• making explicit and offensive reference to sex or bodily functions; coarse and rude : a vulgar joke.
• dated: characteristic of or belonging to the masses.

In essence, profanity is devaluing, or treating irreverently something which is holy. This is forbidden by the third commandment: you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, (literally, ‘lift up the name of the Lord for nothing’ or contemporarily, ‘use the name of the Lord frivolously [or thoughtlessly or flippantly]’). Now this command proscribes the casual use of the name while expressing frustration or surprise. Profanity also includes the thoughtless nigh reflexive damning of things such as the hammer which failed to connect with the nail and quite squarely connected with your thumb. If we believe God has the power to kill and quicken, to save and destroy, then invoking curses on trivial items and situations calling God to damn them reflects a lack of care at best and a desire to manipulate God at worst. (Now this is not to say that there are not situations when curses are appropriate [and is thus not profane]: when Simon attempted simony Peter rebuked him with, ‘May your silver perish with you.’ Likewise Paul states that if anyone preaches another gospel, ‘let him be accursed/anathema.’) Also common is the practice of disparaging one’s fellow man (or woman) especially brothers and sisters in the church. In creation God created man and woman with his own image, and though this was disfigured in the Fall, it was not effaced. To revile a person is too do such to God in effigy. How much more heinous if we profane God by despising our brothers and sisters in whom the image of God is being reformed.

Vulgarity is essentially coarseness. Previously, it was referred to as ‘strong language’. Many of the terms are from Anglo-Saxon roots which express strong feelings when uttered. This, however argues that they should be used sparingly and carefully. To keep the power of vulgar words they should not be used often, but only when the situation requires. (Consider the example of arse/ass; the word is now so common it can no longer be considered vulgar.) However, when the situation requires, express yourself with vulgarity. Luther is quoted as saying, ‘I know that without God’s grace there is nothing good in me, and that I am as much a piece of useless stinking shit as anyone else, if not more,’ which references the Apostle Paul’s ‘Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung [the word here is σκυβαλα or shit], that I may win Christ.’ [Phil 3.8 KJV]

This past weekend my wife and I along with a few of our friends drove to Apache Junction to attend the Arizona Renaissance Festival. We enjoyed the event, where we got to see jousting, and other somewhat period displays. About as interesting as the acts was the people watching. Never will you hear such bad British and Irish accents as at the fair.

My friends and I paid a small sum to throw four axes. Three of mine struck in the board.

I was aiming for the heart in the centre of the shield.

Today, Mrs Hall ends her first trimester and begins the second trimester. Woo, a third of the way there. I’m sure she is excited to be getting over the nausea. Last week we got to hear the fœtal heart beat and look forward to the sonogram that lets us determine the gender of the baby.

(or Intercalary Day if you prefer.)

Often,* one hears that the real leap day is 24 February instead of 29 February. Of course one thinks, ‘But there’s a 24 Feb every year, this doesn’t make sense.’ Indeed, I concur. However, I thought it might be interesting to shed light on why 24 February was considered the intercalary day.

This started back in ancient Rome, where months were not counted as they are now. The Romans had three important days each month, the calends (or kalends) (the first of the month), the nones (the fifth or seventh of the month [the ninth inclusive day before the ides]), and the ides (the thirteenth or fifteenth). The Romans (inclusively) counted down to each day, e.g., today would be the Second of the Calends of March, tomorrow the Calends of March, 21 April the Eleventh of the Calends of May, and 4 August the Second of the Nones of August.

Before Julius Caesar, the Romans used a lunisolar calendar (a calendar that tracked lunar months as well as the solar year). In order to keep the months lined up with the years every so often the ancient romans inserted a month at the end of the year before the last five days of February. Julius Caesar reformed the calendar to a solar calendar. He distributed the extra days of the intercalary month amongst the other months of the year. For the leap year, he inserted an intercalary day after the festival of Terminus (the god of boundaries). Terminalia was on 23 February or the Seventh of the Calends of March. Rather than renumber the days, the date following Terminalia was doubled so that the Seventh of the Calends of March was followed by the Second Sixth† of the Calends of March‡ which was followed by the Sixth otCoM. For a while the Roman church (until the 1970’s) had celebrated saints’ festivals on this pattern (pushing back feasts one day on 24-28 Feb).

And now you know the origin of 24 February as Bissextile day, and the irrelevant trivia section of your mind has expanded.

Homer: How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?
Marge: That’s because you were drunk!
Homer: And how!

Footnotes:
* Okay, maybe only if you’re into recondite trivia.
† Much like Fifth Third Bank.
‡ Known now as Bissextile Day.

Recently I finished the book Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. by Heiko A. Oberman. The premise of the book is that to understand Martin Luther, we cannot view him as either a mediaeval man or a modern man, but have to understand him by his own words. As the title of the book indicated Luther fundamentally saw the world and Christianity as between God and the Devil. Although Luther expressed that the devil is God’s devil, we do not see the omnipotent hand of God, and the devil is still a strong adversary of the Christian in this age. (Although this does not entail the popular belief that God and the devil have cast a vote for your soul and it is up to you to decide who to choose.)

I enjoyed the book quite a bit, and appreciated its thoroughness from Luther’s earthy language to his marrying of Katharina von Bora, and unconventional views on intimacy. Overall I enjoyed the book and found it very engaging. In some places, however, I felt the translation from German could have been made a little clearer, but even so the vast majority of the translation was transparent.

Throughout Scripture we see God working His grace and judgment through families.
— John Sartelle

I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
— Exodus 20

Jesus said, Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.
— Matthew 19

For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.
—Acts 2

Why do we baptize? and what does it signify? Before we look into the question of who we baptize, these questions are necessary to give context to the discussion and frame it.

Baptism is revealed as a command in Scripture. In the great commission found at the end of the Gospel of Matthew we hear Jesus calling us to make disciples and to baptize them in the Triune Name of God. In the Acts of the Apostles and apostolic letters we read of the Word of God being preached and people believing and having their households be baptized.

To determine what baptism signifies, we remember that baptism, like many Christian doctrines, finds its root in the Old Testament. Genesis 15 reveals the covenant God made with Abraham when God alone (pictured as a smoking pot and flaming torch) passed through the torn animals. In Genesis 17 God gave Abram a new name and the sign of the covenant: circumcision. Circumcision was to be given to every man of Abraham’s household and male infants were to be circumcised. Yet we know from examples given in Scripture (such as Esau) that not all who were given the sign of the covenant remained in the covenant, that is, not all of the visible community of faith are of the elect.

Baptism signifies our introduction in the covenant of grace. Not only is it a symbol of this introduction but it seals us in this community. The (Ana)Baptists err on two counts, viz., that baptism is a token of our profession of faith, and that there is no spiritual reality corresponding with the sign. Baptism is no mere token of faith! We cheapen the sign (and thereby grace) when we say it merely symbolizes grace without saying that baptism conveys (or is a means of) grace. Let us be clear, it is not justifying grace that baptism conveys, that is, we are not saved by baptism. However baptism marks the recipient as a member of the church, a people on whom God has bestowed his especial blessing. Baptism does not confer benefits solely at the moment when one is baptized but throughout the life of the Christian. Christians are encouraged to remember their baptism; we recognize that we live as we began, by the grace of God alone.

With this in mind we can begin to answer the question: who do we baptize? We baptize those who are heirs of the covenant of grace. Which of course leads to the question, who are heirs to the covenant? Remembering the Bible is one book — not two — we see that in covenants made with Old Testament figures, the covenant included the figures’ descendants. While Noah was noted as righteous, his children entered the ark as well. God promised with Abraham and his children received the sign of the covenant. Job offered sacrifices not only for himself but his household, etc. Examining the new covenant we see it is greatly expanded; the gospel is for all nations instead of primarily Jews, women are baptized instead of men only being circumcised. Children were included in the old covenants are they to be excluded in the new? (Remember, these covenants are outworkings of the same covenant of grace whereby Jesus secures redemption for his people and takes the wrath due them.) Wouldn’t there be an obvious command forbidding the baptism of our children? Instead of seeing this, we see that God is faithful to households. ‘What must I do to be saved?’ asks the Philippian jailer, Paul and Silas answer, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household.’ Consequently, the jailer and his household are baptized.

Are children of believers the same as those of non-believers? Μη γενοιτο! May it never be! The Apostle Paul advises that even the children of a marriage with one believer are considered holy and set apart. We see throughout history God is delighted to work in families; by the grace of God the children of believers are included in the covenant and normally grow up to be believers themselves, exercising faith in God. Growing up in antipædobaptistic churches, I was ‘dedicated’ as a child to the Lord, and saw many such ‘dedications’ while growing up. Yet we nowhere in Scripture read of child dedication ceremonies. Even these churches realize there was something fundamentally different about Christian children. How great is God’s grace. Let us then give our children the sign of the covenant to which they were born (or adopted); they have ‘a right to the rite’ (Strawbridge).

A final word (Reader, I do not entice you with this phrase only to have you read several more paragraphs.) on the subject concerns the benefits of infant covenantal baptism. Baptism is effectual not only at the time of baptism but throughout life. When parents vow the oaths of baptism they commit themselves to raising the child in accordance with the grace of God. The child is to be immersed in Scripture and the ways of God, and sprinkled by appropriate discipline. The parents cannot presume on God’s grace but grasp hold of his promise and faithfulness to families. The children are reminded of their baptism when they see others being baptized into the household of God. Moreover, stressing the communal aspect of God’s great salvation, the congregation vows to assist in raising the child into his baptism. Praise be to God for allowing such a structure and that he did not call us to be alone but brought us into a community, a household of faith.

I leave you with the words of Calvin:

For how sweet is it to godly minds to be assured, not only by word, but by sight, that they obtain so much favour with the Heavenly Father that their offspring are within his care? … Should we not … rejoice with all our heart in thanksgiving, that his name may be hallowed by such an example of his goodness?
—Institutes 4.16.32

On Saturday I was driving back from the dealership after having the car radio reset. As I was driving home, I was listening to the radio on the station it was preset to and heard what sounded like a country song. Having only a few minutes to drive home, I decided to listen to the song instead of station surfing.

The song sounded like a usual, upbeat country song with practical moral advice like: dance with your wife and kiss your husband every day, etc. The refrain was ‘Cause it’s not who you knew / And it’s not what you did / It’s how you live.’

When the song concluded, the station announced itself as a local ‘Christian’ Music station. I was shocked. (I normally don’t listen to mainstream Christian music — frequently, I play a game when I am out of town; while I’m scanning through the unfamiliar stations, I try to pick out which stations are playing contemporary Christian music; usually I can identify it within 1½ measures.) Now, granted I’ve come to expect that CCM generally speaks of Christ in a confused fashion. But this seems to outrightly deny the method of salvation. We cannot live rightly and get to heaven; true religion is not about ‘cleaning people up’ or having people live nice good lives. Rather, true religion is about how God steps into the mess our lives and redeems for himself a people. Ironically, the name of the group is Point of Grace.

I leave you with this line: Make peace with God and make peace with yourself / ’Cause in the end there’s nobody else.

My pastor has frequently commented that we are to approach God with ‘joyful reverence’, and while I cerebrally understand the idea, experientially the concept is not always perspicuous. Until recently, that is. Since discovering we were going to have a child, the similar concept of ‘exuberant terror’ seems completely normal. While very excited about having my new child; I am very humbled by the fact that I don’t know much about child raising. Quite frankly, it’s unnerving. Thus, we have two paradoxical emotions conjoined.

Although I’m still in the beginning phases of this game, I find it quite enjoyable. The game is a Japanese RPG for the PlayStation 2, (fortunately localized, however) where you enter the game having amnesia and explore a large country with many quests. (Unfortunately I tend to be too linear and it takes me longer to explore etc.) Along the way you learn to play music, (so far I’ve played the harmonica, trumpet, piano, and pipe organ) and explore several towns/cities. The core of the game however is the Trotbot, sort of an automobile with legs. The main character uses these to travel in between towns, and although the controls are a bit odd at first, involving the use of both analogue sticks, it does become quite fun to fight enemies with them. My favourite method would be to uproot trees and throw, or even picking up your opponent to throw him. Although a bit hard to find, I picked up a used copy for $18 on an obscure corner of the internet.

Well, I suppose a new category will have to be added to this blog: fatherhood.
For those of you who don’t know: my wife and I are expecting our firstborn. The due date is late August, early September.

The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy.
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Finding parallels with ancient Greek drama, J. R. R. Tolkien coined the word eucatastrophe to describe the sudden turning of events from bad to good. In his essay ‘On Fairy Stories’ Tolkien notes that most fairy stories have this experience; when the story turns from the protagonists being surrounded by insurmountable circumstances and a single unlooked-for event turns the fortunes of the characters. Consider also, in the Return of the King, when hope is all but lost, the host of Mordor vastly outnumbers the armies of the West; the last hope, Frodo, cannot destroy the One Ring. But, of course, this changes when Gollum/Sméagol takes the ring finger from Frodo, and in comical sequence, dances with pure excitement, loses his footing and plunges into the depths of Orodruin. Since most of Sauron’s power is bound in the ring, he loses this with the ring’s destruction and the forces of evil are defeated (although the characters still fight against remaining evil/sin, cf. The Scouring of the Shire [which was left out of the movie]).

Tolkien laments that eucatastrophe was absent from the modern novel, (cf. Jude the Obscure written 1895) but notes it is found in the older fairy stories and other literature such as Greek drama. (Star Wars: a New Hope also typifies the device with the destruction of the Death Star.) Although often misconstrued, the eucatastrophe is not the ‘happily ever after’ of fairy tales but the event which effectuates the state of ‘happily ever after’.

Yet (as foreshadowed by the introductory quote), the best example of eucatastrophe is the life and death of the Saviour: Jesus Christ. When man had eaten of the fruit of knowledge he enslaved himself and all his progeny in slavery to sin. Man cannot emancipate himself, and worse yet he does not care to do so. While he struggles under the wages of sin, he show inordinate fondness to the master. Stolen waters are sweet (Proverbs 9.17). But, in spite of all this, God takes on human flesh to accomplish redemption for his people! Even when God’s people do not have the sense to cry out to him, he takes delight in rescuing them from the mire (cf. the stories of Judges). He does not do this from afar but steps right into our world, and takes on physicality. To further expand on this, in the darkest hour after Jesus’ friends deserted him, after the weight of sin crushed him on the cross and brought him into the depths of hell, after the Christ had been dead three days: eucatastrophe. Our Saviour rises from the dead, the power of sin and death is broken (though not removed) and the folly and rebellion of Adam is reversed. While all of this is not yet realized and we live between Resurrection and Glory, we see that this event, the life and death of Jesus, his active and passive obedience, is what causes the sin of Adam to truly be a fall into grace. Not only this, but it effects the reformation and renewal of the entire universe.

As previously posted my new iMac came in on Thursday; I’m quite impressed with it. The first thing I noticed is the screen. My screen is a widescreen 16:9 format, 20″ along the diagonal. Coming from a 12″ laptop screen, this is ginormous! I have let to watch a DVD on it but am looking forward to it. At first I figured it would have less area than my 4:3 20″ TV, (and the total area is. [The reader is encouraged to work this out for himself.]) but neglected to consider that since a DVD plays in widescreen there is more viewable area on my widescreen monitor than the TV. (How much is more math than I cared to attempt since I had the epiphany last night.)

Other subtle effects are also nice; I love the way the keyboard feels; the keys respond at less pressure than a traditional keyboard, which translates into less movement and more comfortable keying. Also the keyboard has 19 F-keys which are nice if you want to assign Exposé, Dashboard, or Spaces to an F-key.

Speaking of which, the program Spaces is quite nice. Essentially you can set the computer to have up to 16 different ‘spaces’ where you can have different programs or instances of a program, (like web browsing for item x in space 1 and browsing for item y in space 2, etc.). The cool thing is that you can rearrange the spaces and even drag a window from one space into another! Switching between spaces is as easy as hitting ctrl-# (or ctrl-№) of the space you want.

A program I’ve been playing with is GarageBand of the iLife suite. Garageband lets you put loops of music together as well as record real or software instruments (which can be played with the keyboard) to put together music tracks or podcasts. I, being not terribly musically inclined, can’t play the instruments very well but enjoy the feature where it’ll take a genre give you a choice of instruments and put loops together to create a song.

I tested out the video chat feature with my brother yesterday, which was quite fun, I’ll have to encourage more of my friends to get video cameras.

iWork is another phenomenal program suite, it completely blows MS Office out of the water. Keynote (Slide show program) has such great 3-D transitions, although my favourite is the cube, where it appears that the slide is rotated as if were on a cube to reveal the next slide. Confetti is also fun where the slide exploded into virtual confetti to show the next slide. Pages (word processor and page layout program) is great for making family newsletters and posters. (We’ve used it for our Nativity letters.) Now in the ’08 version there are more themes and templates. New to the suite is Numbers (spreadsheet program), which I haven’t had much time to play with.

And finally, is Front Row and the Apple Remote, Front Row turns the computer into a media centre, allowing you to play music, movies, look at previews for movies, and show pictures from iPhoto. Also the remote controls Keynote and iTunes, (and probably others but I haven’t found them yet).

Well that’s it for now, next post will (likely) be on eucatastrophe, as requested by popular demand.

My new iMac came today and I’m quite excited, I took a picture of me taking a picture of it before I realized you all probably didn’t want to see a picture of me but of the computer. As soon as I get that picture off the camera (which I’ll do after I go search for the cord) I’ll post it, until then I’m going to play around some more; expect some posts on the iMac on the computer this weekend.

I recently received the board games Carcassonne and Puerto Rico. Both are quite enjoyable games, and plenty of fun to play. Both are German-style board games, meaning that they are themed games (not abstract like chess or draughts/chequers) where players are not eliminated during the course of the game.

Carcassonne is a tile laying game (for 2-5 players) where players compete to have their followers score the most points. The game starts with one tile (or in a variant, players can build a river as a starting grid) already placed and players draw title and deploy followers ‘meeple’ to one of several features: roads, cities, cloisters, or fields. The tiles have to match with the tiles around it. When a feature is complete (except for fields), the player takes her follower off the board and scores the points; she may now use the follower for another feature later on. Meeple placed on fields become farmers which cannot be removed until the end of the game, when they are scored. Judicious placement or farms can swing the game several points at the end, and a person may win from behind. A nice thing about Carcassonne is that there are several expansion packs which allow for several variants. (I have not got any expansion packs yet, but I’m looking forward to purchasing some.)

Puerto Rico (for 3 to 5 players) has a novel concept; players chose which ‘role’ to play each round. A governor (which rotates each round) chooses the first role and the associated actions are followed by the players, then the 2nd person chooses a role and all players follow the corresponding actions, etc. The player who chose that role gets some special advantage (e.g., the builder gets a reduced price for building an edifice). The roles let players produce goods, acquire settlers, and ship goods back to Spain, among others. My wife and I have been playing as two players each, but I just found a two-player variant online, that we’ll have to try.

All in all these are very good games and along with the Settlers of Catan (which is perhaps my favourite board game so far [We have all the expansions.]) serve as a good introduction to German-style board games, and I’m sure I’ll be buying additional titles in the future.

As a final note, I came across this war game, now I have to get it, but what a price tag!

I would like to get a Wii for my birthday in August. As we all know, it is currently hard to find one. My friend Stephanie pointed me to an interesting article about the reasons for the shortage.

A while back I was pointed to the FreeRice website. I now have spent quite a bit of time on it. The basic premise is that the site presents a word and the player selects the best definition from 4 options. If the player gets the word correctly, the site donates 20 grains of rice to alleviate word hunger. The money for the rice comes from the advertising on the bottom of the screen.

What’s not to love? you’re increasing your vocabulary and feeling like you’ve contributed to solving a major world issue. Besides, where else are you going to find out words like ‘bumbershoot’?

On a side note, does anyone know the number of grains of rice in a fifty-pound bag?

A good friend lent me a computer while I wait to afford a new one (which should be mid-January when we’ll buy an iMac). So I’ve been able now to check my email, check out The Shepherd’s Scrapbook Blog which has very nice pictures of books and found an interesting article on infralapsarianism versus supralapsarianism; a topic I was very interested in a year or two after I became Reformed but (while it is still interesting) have come to the conclusion that it is delving too deep into the mind God — although it does show the unsearchableness thereof. But, perhaps I’ll get Berkhof’s Systematic Theology for Nativity and I can brush up on it.

But that is not the reason I borrowed the computer. I have decided to attempt to learn how to programme for computers. My friend was gracious enough to give me some materials to start programming in C#. I’ve only worked through a few simple programmes, the first of course being “Hello World”, but it seems it should be interesting and more important, useful. Of course it is quite a bit easier to learn by doing examples with the computer than trying to learn just the knowledge without. (While I learnt the concept in the University, I didn’t always heed it.)

(Sadly, because my computer died, my posts will be infrequent until January)

I went to Phoenix this weekend and visited with my sister-in-law & her husband. While my wife was with the girls shopping and going to female-only makeup parties. I went to hear Drs Godfrey and Horton in an conference. It was interesting; the topics were evangelism thru the preaching of the Word.

After much debate and £125,000, ‘Welcome to Scotland’ is Scotland’s new tourism motto. Just a wee bit underwhelming, except of course that price tag, which is US $257,000. That’s $86,000 per word. Obviously I’m in the wrong business.

I think they could have at least translated into Scottish, ‘Walcome tae Scotland’.

This week, I went to see the Broadway (or off-Broadway, I forget) musical The Rat Pack: Live at the Sands The show was great and the performers sang very well. However, being in the back meant we that we couldn’t see all that well; I had forgot to bring my field glasses, which I guess is okay since I’m sure my 10x or 12x binoculars would look quite out of place.

I enjoyed the introducer, stating in a Mafia accent that the is show is not sponsored by nor affiliated with organized crime.

But I think my favourite comment was before the last song, Frank said, ‘I’ll now sing the national anthem’ and proceeded to sing I Did it My Way

At work, this email was sent to all employees yesterday:

As the holidays get closer, we would like to bring a little holiday cheer to our work area. You’re more than welcome to bring ornaments (Non-denominational only please… no Santa, religious etc.) to hang on our holiday tree!

Ignoring the silliness about the ‘holiday tree’, because brevity is the art of wit, or so it is said.

My thought was, ‘No Santas?! When did commercialism become a denomination?’

Or as my wife quipped, ‘Santa represents commercialism, the national religion; tell them that by forbidding Santa, they’re being unpatriotic.’

I am currently reading through Guns, Germs, and Steel (a good book, although rather verbose). The author mentions in passing a few islands off the coast of Tasmania and southern Australia which were connected to Australia and Tasmania at the end of the Last Ice Age. As the sea rose with the melting of the glaciers, Tasmania and these other smaller islands became separated from the Australian mainland. While these smaller islands off the coast of Tasmania were discovered by Europeans they were uninhabited. Evidence was found however that there were at one time Australian Aborigines on the islands. The book states that from a population in the few hundreds, ultimately the populations were not self sustaining and died off; apparently there is no evidence that the island Aborigines had watercraft.

One wonders what the last person on each island thought before he died. Did his culture remember the mainland Australia? Did he think he was the last person on Earth? (I realize there is a movie coming out that explores this theme, I am Legend — well ‘explores’ is probably not the right word.) One wonders if there were a small group that the members died at the same time, or was one man or woman left alive and survived for years after his or her comrades passed away. The isolation must have been staggering; how much hope could there be if you thought you were the last person alive and knew you could not reproduce and continue the line of humans? What sort of mythologies or worldview would a culture that knew it was dying out have?

I only have a cigar socially about once every 6 months but was introduced to this poem by a friend. If anyone knows of a ‘Drinking Spiritualized’ please feel free to share.

Smoking Spiritualized.
In Two Parts.

Part One: The Law

This Indian weed now wither’d quite,
Tho’ green at noon, cut down at night,
Shows thy decay;
All flesh is hay.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

The pipe, so lily-like and weak,
Does thus thy mortal state bespeak
Thou art ev’n such,
Gone with a touch.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the smoke ascends on high,
Then thou behold’st the vanity
Of worldy stuff,
Gone with a puff.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the pipe grows foul within,
Think on thy soul defil’d with sin;
For then the fire,
It does require.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And seest the ashes cast away;
Then to thyself thou mayest say,
That to the dust
Return thou must.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

Part Two: The Gospel

Was this small plant for thee cut down!
So was the Plant of great renown;
Which mercy sends
For nobler ends.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

Doth juice medicinal proceed
From such a naughty foreign weed?
Then what’s the power
Of Jesse’s flower?
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

The promise, like the pipe, inlays,
And by the mouth of faith conveys
What virtue flows
From Sharon’s rose.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

In vain th’ unlighted pipe you blow;
Your pains in outward means are so,
Till heav’nly fire
The heart inspire.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

The smoke, like burning incense, tow’rs;
So should a praying heart of yours,
With ardent cries,
Surmount the skies.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

A basic presupposition of Christianity (which is oft forgotten) is that God is in complete control of the universe; i.e., he is sovereign. God has revealed he is Creator and Redeemer and is sovereign over both creation and redemption. When he speaks, things happen. Yet God does not often thunder from beyond the sky, but uses secondary methods (the ordinary and mundane mechanisms of the world) to orchestrate history and achieve his ends. We see even in the lives of Abraham and Moses — who experienced God speaking directly — long periods where God is silent, and the two are asked to be faithful to God without hearing directly. Since the cessation of revelation with the writings of the last apostle, God has been directly history by ordinary, mundane, everyday means. While not much of what transpires makes sense, Christians trust (or ought) that God is sovereign and will work out everything to his end. As Moses wrote, ‘The secret things belong to the Lord.’

In the first sentence God speaks to man, he commands him to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it. Though often misinterpreted, God delegates humanity as vicegerents or stewards of the earth. The phrase does not mean that man should pillage the earth and mismanage its resources. Before the Fall of Adam, man would have been a perfect steward, always keeping in mind who owned and ruled the earth. He would have productively worked the land, been responsible with the technology he developed, and in all things worked effectively. (He also would have enjoyed leisure fully, but that issue is outside the scope of this article.) But alas, Adam sinned and partook of the forbidden fruit, and we (among other ill effects of that tree) no longer properly steward the earth.

J.R.R Tolkien expressed the idea of stewardship well in his Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. At the time when The Lord of the Rings takes place, Gondor is ruled by the Steward Denethor. Denethor is from a long line of stewards since the kingly line of the Southern Kingdom failed. Over a thousand years have past and no king sits in the throne of Gondor; the steward himself only sits in a chair beside the throne. Denethor’s eldest, Boromir, asks how long can the throne be vacant until a steward ascends to the position of king. Denethor, in effect, states never. Yet Tolkien also shows the degeneration of the role of Stewardship as neither Boromir nor Denethor recognize Aragorn as King.

How does this relate to climate change? There has been much talk about global warming and greenhouse emissions. It seems indisputable that the earth’s atmosphere is getting warmer, though there are debates as to how much. It is also probably true that humanity has some effect on these temperatures. How should we approach this? First, remember that God is sovereign, nothing happens outside his secret will. As stewards, the prudent course of action is to analyse the data, and to develop a course of action that takes all data into consideration. This may include having different emissions standards for different countries, depending on population, development status, economical considerations, and so forth. While we should reduce emissions, this is not the sole thing that must occur. Another part of a comprehensive strategy is to develop non-fossil fuels. Of course other economic considerations must take place. Let us exercise our stewardship well, and let everything be done to the glory of God.

While I was websurfing, I found this site with this great image.

I must admit, I sometimes listen to talk radio, mostly in the morning when all the music stations have talk anyway. The local FM Talk Radio station is named ‘The Truth’, which is quite a pretentious name for news and politics radio. Recently, (well I only started listening a few months ago, but probably since forever, since that seems to be the nature of the hosts; every one of them will pontificate and wax eloquent for 30-40 min on 30-40 seconds of content [Or twice as long with half the content if the host is Rush Limbaugh.] with probably no more than 5 or 6 topics in the host’s répertoire.) the topic has been illegal immigration.

Now, I’m as much for immigration reform as the next guy, but I find it outré how much the discussion is disparaging toward the immigrants themselves. All sorts of deprecatory labels are given to them. The most common is criminal, which although technically true, in that they have broken a law, takes into no account the difference between malum in se [wrong in itself], and malum prohibitum [wrong due to prohibition]. For example, murder is a malum in se, but travelling 209,664 fpf in a 201,600 furlong per fortnight zone. (78 mph in a 75 mph zone or 125 km/h in 120 km/h zone). Crossing borders into a different territory is an example of malum prohibitum. The real crime rests with the governments. Consider the subpar conditions in Mexico, whose people flee their oppressive situation to come a land of opportunity, many of which send a substantial money back home to enrich their families’ lives. Many of these immigrants are honest labourers, simply trying to improve their situation. Now I agree, they should go through customs and attempt to enter the USA legally. Unfortunately our government has failed us by making the illegal entry into this country easier than legal entry. Does the Statue of Liberty no longer beckon the world’s disenfranchised?

What I propose is an immigration reform that secures our borders making illegal entry difficult, but to remove the quotas imposed on non-European countries; more Mexican seasonal workers should be given work vistas. This way we can screen applicants and we’d be better able to prevent true criminals or terrorists from coming into our land.

But of course the animosity goes deeper than that; these hosts and presumably their listeners, so value ‘American’ culture, that they are afraid of any foreign influences. I have heard such ludicrous ideas as forbidding the use of Spanish (or other foreign language) in homes and minority community stores and churches. Although I do believe that the most preposterous thing said was that ‘they’ are bastardizing our language. I really did want someone to call in and say something in Old English, and accuse the host of speaking bastardized English for not understanding him.

Yet, all people contain the image of God (imago Dei); broken and shattered though it be by the Fall. We are called to treat each other with honour and respect. To disparage another human is to disparage God in effigy. We are all descended from Adam, and all bruised and broken in his Fall. Therefore, no basis for discrimination remains; we are all beggars. Yet though the imago Dei is defaced, it is not effaced; broken and shattered but not annihilated nor destroyed. Hope remains still, and let us seek thus: that people of every culture, language, and nation have the image of God restored. This power belongs only to Christ, the Second Adam; where Adam failed, he succeeded, while the first cast all his progeny into darkness, the latter restores his to light. The Apostle Paul writes that Christ forms the new humanity, in which there is no free or slave, Greek or Barbarian, Scythian or Jew, male or female.

I close with the words of Charles Wesley, from the hymn Hark, How All the Welkin Rings (usually Hark! the Herald Angels Sing):

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.

Yesterday, my wife and were invited to our friends’ house where we ate dinner and played a couple of board games: Yellowstone and Acquire.

We played Yellowstone before dinner, while their rambunctious two-year old played with her large floor puzzle. Yellowstone is a fun, non taxing, game. In the game you have to control a herd (bison, big-horned sheep, mule deer, or elk) from the edge of the board to the centre. In some ways it resembles a complex version of Chinese Checkers, only with predators stalking your marbles/members of the herd. Overall, it is fun, and quite entertaining when you send a mountain lion to kill a rival herd’s unaccompanied young.

After dinner, we played Aquire. Now this is quite the interesting game. My friend has one of the old versions when it was produced by 3M. The parts are rather simple: a game board with co-ordinates (A-I and 1-12), tiles with printed co-ordinates, 7 hotel chains, paper money, and stock for each company. Each turn is rather simple but the strategy overall is complex and subtle. It is hard to know who is winning until all the money is counted at the end. Each turn consists of playing one of six tiles in your hand, buying stock, and replacing the tile in your hand. For founding a company, the player is awarded a free share of stock. The challenge comes in when companies merge. The smaller company is absorbed into the larger, bonuses are paid to the two largest shareholders of the small company, and all holders can trade shares for the new company, sell the shares, or keep, hoping the company will be restarted. The strategy is to buy stock in companies in the beginning that’ll be bought out, but to end up as a majority shareholder in couple of the larger surviving companies. Of course, it’s often hard to predict which company will perform. A lot of what makes the game enjoyable is that each player is kept in the game until the end. Much to her delight, my wife won. Amazingly, we left at 10:30 pm and I had to be work the next day at 6:45 am, but it was well worth it.

Perhaps next I can comment on one of my favourite games, Settlers of Catan (of which we have 2 expansion packs).

I was watching the Planet Earth on DVD last night and again saw the locust plague. It was quite interesting to watch and I had written a note about it the first time, which is the basis for this post. (Although I have expanded it.)

Watching the destruction brought by the swarm and hearing David Attenborough describe the various instars of locust brought to mind the book of Joel. (Apparently locust too young to fly move about by jumping and are called ‘hoppers’.) Now while many would be reminded of the plague of locust against the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus, or the wild description of locust in Revelation, my mind was brought to the plague that gives the prophecy of Joel context, which Joel says was brought against Israel, God’s people, by God himself.

What the cutting locust left,
the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
the hopping locust has eaten,
and what the hopping locust left,
the destroying locust has eaten.
Joel 1:4 ESV (English Standard Version)

(Without delving too deeply into the difference between formal equivalence ‘word-for-word’ [e.g., KJV, ESV, NASB] and dynamic equivalence ‘thought-for-thought’ [e.g., NIV, TLV, the Message] I was shocked at how some dynamic versions translated the text, the worst example probably being the CEV [Contemporary English Version]:

Swarm after swarm of locusts has attacked our crops, eating everything in sight.

Where is the majesty of this? Joel, written in poetry, has been turned into prose, vapid prose at that. But I digress, this is a topic for another time.)

The text continues to state that the elements of the grain and drink offering are devoured, and Israel can no longer offer those sacrifices. How would we respond if the vine and grain were destroyed, if we could no longer commune with God in the sacraments? The presence of God would be in some sense removed from his people. Yet we see in 2:12 that the Lord calls his own to a life of repentance (Cf. Luther’s 95 Theses) ‘Rend your hearts and not your garments.’ True repentance does not consist of outward signs. Even weeping, while good, is not sufficient, but repentance, prompted by the Holy Spirit, must affect our whole being. And although pity is not owed us (repentance is not the cause of grace), the Lord promises grace in Christ to those who believe and repent.

I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.
Joel 2:25

As the title of the blog included etymology I suppose I should include a post about it. The other day I was reading The Institutes of Christian Religion — which one should never read without a dictionary nearby — when I came across the word obdurate which is apparently very similar to obstinate. My Oxford dictionary gives this etymology

ORIGIN late Middle English (originally in the sense [hardened in sin, impenitent] ): from Latin obduratus, past participle of obdurare, from ob- ‘in opposition’ + durare ‘harden’ (from durus ‘hard’ ).

Obstinate comes from the Latin to persist.

On a further note there’s even a useful note at stubborn delineating the usage and shades of meaning of the related words.

THE RIGHT WORD
If you’re the kind of person who takes a stand and then refuses to back down, your friends might say you have a stubborn disposition, a word that implies an innate resistance to any attempt to change one’s purpose, course, or opinion.

People who are stubborn by nature exhibit this kind of behavior in most situations, but they might be obstinate in a particular instance (: a stubborn child, he was obstinate in his refusal to eat vegetables). Obstinate implies sticking persistently to an opinion, purpose, or course of action, especially in the face of persuasion or attack.
While obstinate is usually a negative term, dogged can be either positive or negative, implying both tenacious, often sullen, persistence (: dogged pursuit of a college degree, even though he knew he would end up in the family business) and great determination ( | dogged loyalty to a cause).

Obdurate usually connotes a stubborn resistance marked by harshness and lack of feeling (: obdurate in ignoring their pleas), while intractable means stubborn in a headstrong sense and difficult for others to control or manage ( | intractable pain).

No matter how stubborn you are, you probably don’t want to be called pertinacious, which implies persistence to the point of being annoying or unreasonable (: a pertinacious panhandler).

With 2 batches of homebrew under my belt, I’m looking to do another soon. I decided to appease my SO and brew a Cherry Wheat Ale; I’ll probably do a kit again until I get comfortable enough to play with the recipes. My first batch I named what the recipe was labelled, and worked as a consultant on the 2nd batch (which ended up just being named the style of the beer).  I am thinking of naming this one ‘Cereza Cerveza’ but am open to suggestions. 

Nearly all the wisdom we posses, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.  
— John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
— J.R.R. Tolkien — The Hobbit 

Call me Ishmael.
— Herman Melville — Moby Dick 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
— The Bible 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
— Jane Austin — Pride and Prejudice 

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
— Douglas Adams — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 

Failing to think of a suitable introduction to my first post on my first blog, I have sampled from literature. Which brings us to the subject of the post. Knowledge is primarily personal. What we know about others comes from revelation of them, either by themselves or one who knows them (though this not always by the intent of the revealer). On the internet, this is even more so, as people adopt personae which correspond to their real-world presence to varying degrees. 

Likewise, God (who cannot unintentionally reveal himself) can only be known by his revelation. In creation (an unnecessary act) he revealed himself. But we are no longer in communion with God or nature; how do we know we see God rightly in creation?How can we trust our senses and reasoning? Are we akin to bleary-eyed men who if a beautiful book were cast in front of us could not read even two words? Where do we get glasses to see, &c.? 

More anon, I have to interact with the real world.