I heard this morning, while traveling to Indy and listening to CNN, that Joe Biden and his wife gave a whopping 1 percent of their income to charity. An additional press release said they not only give of their money, they give of their time. Yeah, right. Like, 9 percent of their time?
I’m going to put a percentage value on the time Pam and I give to our church, and then reduce our monetary tithe by that much.
Or maybe no. Because, Joe, that’s not BIBLICAL.
Quote from Perry Noble about the church he pastors, Newspring:
We do not have the corner on the market when it comes to a movement of God. We aren’t doing church “the right way.” We aren’t doing church a better way. We are doing church the way God called us to do it
A number of dynamic, young, different-thinking megachurch pastors fly a little bit under the mainstream radar. I’m thinking of people like Perry Noble, Craig Groeschel, Francis Chan, David Gibbons, and Rob Bell. They are the future of evangelical Christianity. And yet, some of them strike fear into the hearts of mainstream, baby-boomer evangelicals, because they don’t toe the party line. They are stretching evangelicals in some directions we’ve been ignoring during the past 30 years as we’ve been focused on wielding power–something tese young pastors show little interest in.
Another of these young pastors is Geoff Surrratt, pastor of the multisite Seascoast church in South Carolina. He recently posted a blog item called “I’m Through with Christianity.” I must say, I agree with practically everything he said. Let me offer just a few quotes:
I think Bo is a cute First Dog. But animal rights groups are picking nits (like everyone else). They think the Obamas should have chosen a dog from an animal shelter, rather than a purebred dog from a breeder.
So I’ve been toying with ideas about family choice and the pro-choice view.
Animal rights groups tend to occupy the political left (though there are plenty of us in the middle and even on the right horrified by the conditions in factory farming). Those animal rights activists would probably be pro-choice–if you don’t want a baby, choose abortion. Your family is your personal business.
Now, the Obamas very deliberately chose Bo. They could have gone to the local dog pound, but didn’t. Their family, their decision.
Actually, you could think of Bo as a dog that had been given up for adoption. Bo didn’t work out with his original owners, so they returned him to the breeder. So in an analogous sense, the Obamas were rescuing an unwanted child. But that apparently doesn’t count with the PETA people.
Let’s play with this some more. Should we criticize parents who give birth to a child, when so many children are awaiting adoption? Many children languish in orphanages and the foster care system, just as untold thousands of cats and dogs sit in animal shelters.
Maybe we should criticize the Obamas for giving birth to Malia and Sasha, rather than adopting children. How terribly selfish of them. What kind of example does that set for other Americans? How can they encourage adoption, when they themselves chose differently?
In their own families, do those animal rights people adopt children rather than having their own biological children? That would be consistent with their values.
Or do they, indeed, birth their own children (at least the ones they don’t abort), but only adopt when it comes to pets? Are pets worth rescuing, but not children?
These are just ideas I’m toying with as I search for something profound to say. I’ll find it eventually.
This is great–a Youtube video of grandma trying to set up her digital TV. (Sorry, they disabled the feature for embedding the video in blogs, so you have to go to Youtube. But it’s worth it.)
In the 18th century, here’s how the British treated pirates: coat their bodies in tar, wrap them in chains, and publicly hang them from gallows at the harbor entrance. My guess: that wouldn’t be acceptable today. Unfortunately.
Most maritime organizations oppose arming merchant ships. While I cheered the recent events off Somalia, it does raise serious concerns in the maritime community.
Why don’t merchant ships arm themselves? I did some googling, and here’s what I learned.
Ships now use non-lethal methods such as electric fences, water hoses, and long-range sound cannons, of which one person said, “It’s the most annoying sound you’ve ever heard in your life–you literally cannot operate. It makes you nauseous.”
I have a theory about toothpaste tubes. Behold the Crest tube I hold in my hands above. It has looked just like this, flat, used-up, for nigh unto, oh, must be at least two months. During that time, I’ve continued, on a daily basis, squeezing out enough toothpaste to accomplish my dental care mission. Every morning I think, “Today, there will be no more. It’s empty.” And yet, just enough squeezes out onto the toothbrush to, for yet another day, fight tooth decay and impart minty breath.
For at least 90% of its life, a toothpaste tube looks just like this. Yet, amazingly, as a result of secret technological innovations in high-security Proctor & Gamble labs, it continues to function usefully week after week. Somehow, a high proportion of the toothpaste remains even when the tube appears to be spent. This may, in fact, be a conspiracy to prompt gullible buyers into springing for a new tube, not realizing that they have only begun to mine the depths of flavorful goo contained therein.
It is much like that widow in Sidon, told about in Judges, whose jar of flour and jug of oil never ran empty. Or like the loaves and fishes. Except those were actual miracles, whereas Crest merely uses some clever engineering ploy.
But know this: even though the tube looks empty, it’s cleansing action will yet remain with you for weeks or months as you continue on your daily oral hygiene rituals.
When I came to Huntington College in 1975, we had three students from Iran. This was four years before the Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in February 1979 (the US embassy was seized in November 1979). I’ve wondered what happened to Parvis, Ramez, and Sammy.
Parvis is the one I remember most vividly. He had an exuberant personality–fun-loving, big laugh, big smile. And smart, evidently, since he graduated with a degree in Philosophy. Everyone liked him. Soon after my freshman year started, he pledged with the Alpha Sigma Eta fraternity. He was a great sport throughout the two weeks of initiation.
I remember hearing Parvis talk once about Iran. He was very proud of his country. He mentioned how progressive, how modern, it was amidst the other Middle-Eastern countries. And he emphasized that Iran was very pro-American. He felt Iran was an important, strategic friend of the United States.
Ramez, who graduated the same year with a Biology degree, was quiet and kept a low profile. My only real memory of him involves the freshman slave auction: he bought me, Steve Barber, and Brad Carpenter, and took us out to do yardwork at the home of Dr. Fred Morgan, a biology professor.
As for Sammy (left)–I have no memories of interactions with him. He didn’t return the next year.
So what happened to these guys? Were they back in Iran in 1979 in time for the revolution? If so, which side did they take? Did they endure hardship for having attended a Christian college in the United States? Or, having experienced some American idealism, did they sympathize with Khomeini against the repressive Shah of Iran (a fairly decent dictator, as dictators go, but still a dictator who committed human rights abuses as he silenced dissent).
It’s quite possible they stuck around in the States for graduate work. Maybe they’re still here. Or maybe they went back long ago, and now only have distant memories of Huntington University. Maybe they fought, perhaps died, in the lengthy war with Iraq. Or maybe they are living normal lives in Iran, and, having lived among Americans,get questions about Abu Ghraib and George Bush’s defense of torture, and why the US views them as such an evil country. If so, how do they respond?
I don’t know. I just have questions, and wonder.
Rick Pride, a United Brethren pastor in Columbia City, Ind., left the following as his Facebook status. I like it.
Today, dweebs and lawyers run the world. I’m a marginal dweeb. Put me in Medieval society, and I’d be very ordinary. Not strong. Can’t make stuff. If the Vikings attacked my town, I’d be one of the villagers killed while running toward the forest, an arrow in my back. I’d be one of the nameless millions starved under Stalin or Mao. But as it is, because of what our current society values, I have a good place, and Google knows my name.
I think of the minions toiling in construction, logging, and in steel factories–able-bodied men, big, rough-hewn. In centuries past, they would be the warriors, the hunters–important people. Mountain Men. They didn’t need to be smart or articulate. They just needed to be big and fit. I look at some of the people in my church struggling to find a job, and with no education to put on a resume. Some of them might have made excellent Vikings.
Warren Buffet made this point to Barack Obama several years ago.
After becoming a senator, Barack Obama was summoned to Omaha by Buffet. The billionaire wanted to talk about tax policy–specifically, why Washington kept cutting his taxes. He told Obama, “If there’s class warfare going on in America, then my class is winning.”
Obama writes about the visit in The Audacity of Hope.
Buffet told him he’d done some calculations. “I’ll pay a lower effective tax rate this year than my receptionist….And if the President has his way, I’ll be paying even less.”
“Effective rate” has to do with deriving most of your income from dividends and capital gains, which Bush reduced in 2003 to a mere 15% rate. Meanwhile, the receptionist was taxed at nearly twice that rate.
Since Reagan, tax policy has increasingly favored the wealthy. It’s something Jesus would condemn, but most Christians seem okay with that, since it’s a Republican policy.
“It just makes sense that those of us who’ve benefited most from the market should pay a bigger share,” Buffet said.
And then came this wonderful insight:
I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I’d been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can’t run very fast. I’m not particularly strong. I’d probably end up as some wild animal’s dinner.
But I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing–and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that.
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