Celebrity or Servant?

I don't like publishing a blog article that is in content basically just a link. But this post by Jared Moore was too good to pass up.

I could re-list his points here, but I can't say it any better than he has, so I'll just redirect you to his page.

Is That Thing Really Necessary?

I've turned off the word verification feature (feature?) for comments.  I did it mostly because it annoys me, so I figure it might annoy other people as well.  But, that's assuming I'm normal, which is a questionable assumption.  But try reading these things; they make my semester of Greek seem easy.

I'll have to wait and see how many web crawlers, robots, Russian mafia spammers, or alien intelligences spam my comments now that there is no word verification.  If you see it suddenly back in place, you'll know that I was attacked by one or more of the above.  If I don't seem like me after that, find out what they did with me.

Dasvidaniya, tovarich!

Consolidated Blogging (?)

I've watched several blogs consolidate in the past year or two.  In particular, the Gospel Coalition has absorbed a few of the independent bloggers into its rotation of contributors.  At first, this bugged me a bit.  I looked at it like Wal-Mart putting the proverbial mom-and-pop hardware and grocery stores out of business.

But now I've changed my view.  I like the idea, primarily for its practicality.  Most of us are not Tim Challies.  (I was listening to the Band of Bloggers audio from T4G12, and one of the panelists made this point...as the rest of us were saying, 'duh'.)  I can't, and have neither reason nor desire, to put a full-length article on line at least once a day; one that people are interested in and want to read.  (I suppose one would need to be an interesting person to be able to do this.  I ain't.)

So the idea of combining forces with a few like-minded individuals seems like a good idea.  The Pyromaniacs were on the cutting edge of this philosophy, and have done a great job of it.  A predecessor to the Pyro guys, perhaps, was the radio program White Horse Inn.  There, four pastors from different denominational backgrounds get together weekly to discuss gospel-related issues.  They've done extremely well at it.

The hard part is, where do you find a couple of like-minded folks to share in your blog?  Beyond that, what about the personal side to the blog?  Do you still post family pictures, or videos of your kids playing baseball? (I don't see much of that on Pyro or GC, for example.) What about the days where you just don't have anything to say?

And perhaps the bigger question- how do you deal with the fact that you may not be a writer on par with your colleagues?  If I were asked to be a contributor to an established blog with a large readership, I'm not sure I'd have the guts to say 'yes'.  After all, I can't write like those folks can. So how does one deal with the skill inadequacies?

Lots of good questions.  For now, I'll keep posting here-and-there when I have something to say.  Maybe someday I'll get good enough at this to command some peer involvement!

Dumb Question

Does anybody know why Blogger won't let me reply to posts on my own blog?

?????

Not a Lot of Posts These Days

I haven't been posting as many blog posts the last couple weeks.  I haven't had the free time to do so, and I'm not trying to generate a giant audience that daily postings require.  So please don't be disappointed that there's not something new here every day!

I've also been trying to wean myself off the internet a bit, as I have begun giving up reading time to browse the various blogs and whatnot that comes with blogging; I need to do less browsing and more reading.  As a result, I probably won't have quite as many links to post or funny videos to send you to.

Anyway, go find a good book and read it.

Four More Reasons to Blog

Justin Taylor has these quotes from notables about writing, and the effect it has on our thinking.

Thud!

If I recall, the world (according to Harold Camping) was supposed to end today, for the second time this year.  (One blogger called this the end of Camping's Reign of Error).  I guess it isn't midnight yet, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

The surprising part isn't, of course, the fact that we're all still here, the surprising part is how much the Christian blogosphere has completely ignored the day.  Maybe they are on eggshells and it will be all over the place tomorrow.  But I doubt it.  Kinda squirrely.

I think this is the thud heard round the blogosphere.  Or not.

When Writing Seems Futile

I've been digesting quite a few of the bloggers' takes on the 10-year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.  I've tried to think of something wise or useful to add to the discussion, but remembering back to what I was thinking on that day, I really don't think I have anything to say that would raise the bar for anybody.  It seems futile to try to make sense of the events even ten years later, at least in a communicable way that people can understand and appreciate.

If I can think of something beneficial to add, I'll post it Sunday.  If you don't see anything here, I couldn't.

A New Blog I've Enjoyed Reading

Sometimes we need to get away from the usual for something different.  I have about 20 blogs I read regularly, and most of them are well-established and popular sites.  A couple aren't that big (yet).  I've pointed you to Pete Scribner's blog in the past, and I'd like to point you to another one now.  I think both will grow, because both are very good.

Aimee Byrd is writing a relatively new blog called, The Housewife Theologian.  I really like the direction she's taking (finding how the gospel interrupts the ordinary in life), and she's a talented writer.  Go check it out.

I Hate It When I Do That!

I thought of a brilliant idea today for a blog post.  It was a witty way to start a serious conversation about something important.  It would have been original, which is unusual in the blog world (which tends to be a giant echo chamber).

I didn't write it down.  As Tom Clancy made famous in one of his books, "If you don't write it down, it never happened."  As I get older, that fact becomes more clear.  I guess I must have forgotten it when I had the thought, or I'd have followed my own advice and written it down.

Oh, well. Maybe I'll think of it later.  (Probably when I'm not near the computer and don't have a pen and paper to write it down.)

This brings to mind another idea- is the fall (as in Genesis, Adam and Eve, etc.) partially or totally responsible for our poor memories?  If so, in what ways?  At least I'll be able to look back at this this blog post to see what I forgot I was to write about later. 

At least, I can if I remember where I wrote it down.

Book Review of Counterfeit Gospels

I recently discovered a new blog that I really enjoy.  It was mentioned by Tim Challies...it is called Blogging Theologically and is written by Aaron Armstrong.  I don't know much about Aaron, but I really like his blog.

Today, he posted a book review that was excellent.  (By the way, if you don't know a good reason for reading blogs, one of the best is book reviews.  You can't always trust that reviews on Amazon.com are legitimate...those can be easily staged.  But reviews on blogs are the real deal. Here's a link to all my reviews on Amazon.com, in case anyone cares.)

His review was of Trevin Wax's book, Counterfeit Gospels.  Here's the link to Aaron's review.

Aaron tells us not only what the content was of the book, but why the content was important, why we need to read what the author wrote, and how it can help us bring glory to God in our daily lives. 

And the book itself seems to ring a resonant chord, especially in light of the recent Rob Bell mess and the blogosphere battles over Bell and his critics and supporters.

I'm ordering a copy of Counterfeit Gospels on Thursday (pay day).  I just need to decide if I'm getting the Kindle version or the hardback version.

Too Good to Pass Up

Sometimes accusations fly that the blogosphere is nothing more than a giant echo chamber.  Maybe so.  But sometimes, I run across a blog post that is just too good to pass up.  This post, by Jared Compton over on the Gospel Coalition blog, is one of those.  Go read it.

As soon as I've obtained permission, I'll be printing it out for my Sunday School class.

What are you waiting for?  Go read it!

Discussions, Controversies, and Divisions- Where's the Line?

In the blog bailiwick where I hang (see the list on the side column), there isn't a lot of controversy.  I tend to read a more monolithic set of blogs.  When I want an opinion contrary, I know where to go find it (like Roger Olsen's blog...if he says the sky is blue, then I assume it must be something else...he's the author of How to be evangelical without being conservative, for example).  I seek those out as the need arises, but the need does not often arise.  Having grown up a semi-Pelagian, I am familiar with the other side of the Calvinist-Arminian debate.

Frank Turk has a blog he shares with a couple other fellows called Pyromaniacs.  It is usually a fun read, and there isn't much there I disagree with, though there's often stuff I don't fully understand.  Today, Frank published An Open Letter to Michael Horton. 

That got my attention.  I like Mike.  He co-hosts a radio program called The White Horse Inn, which I would listen to more often if I had time, but catch when I can.  Horton has written several outstanding books, including Christless Christianity and it's sequel, The Gospel-Driven Life.  I recommend both (though they can get heavy in places).  He just came out with a new systematic theology that I blogged about earlier today. He edits a magazine called Modern Reformation, to which I also subscribe.  I like Mike (did I mention that?).

So when I started in to Turk's letter, I was a bit ambivalent.  Nothing improved much after reading the very interesting post (found here).  It pointed out how much Turk appreciated and looked up to Horton, as do I. No disagreement there. But it also pointed out a possible problem with the results of the way Horton portrays the gospel.  Turk didn't say Horton said anything wrong at all...on the contrary, he completely agrees with Horton on the gospel.  The problem, Turk said, was how some people might react to what could be a bit of imbalance in the results of the presentation of the gospel in a indicative/imperative dichotomy.  (If you've read my blog in the past, you know I've presented the same dichotomy at times, leaning heavily on Tullian Tchividjian in the process.)

I noticed a lot of comments were already posted, and the article wasn't but a couple hours old.  Unusual.  In fact, there were over 200 comments in less than four hours.  Very unusual. While some of what Turk said made sense to me, I was still skeptical of Turk's thesis, so I started skimming the comments.  I quickly ran across a guy named Charlie (read the post and the comments, down to Charlie's, for the full effect).  Charlie was living, breathing, walking, talking empirical evidence that the problem Turk was fearing was a real problem...in living color.

A few months ago, I read a blog post (or maybe an interview, I don't recall for sure) by John Piper on what he saw as some threats to the integrity of the relatively new reformed resurgence, or as it is sometimes called, the YRR (young, restless, and reformed) movement.  Piper listed a few, but he missed one that I think is a real threat, and that is exemplified by Charlie in the Pyromaniacs comments section.  It's hard to summarize the problem, but it basically involves those of a certain reformed perspective denying that anyone outside their perspective can call themselves 'reformed' in any meaningful way.  Charlie uses name-calling to make his point:  he's a Baptist-hater.  He calls Baptists anabaptists, Arminians, Pelagians, and adherents to Roman Catholicism.  Wow.  He makes so many errors of basic logic, it is hard to even start on a criticism.  But that's not the main point.  I digress.  Back to the main point: divisiveness.

That won't work, folks.  Having heard Charlie, I now see Frank Turk's point, and he's right.  We need to balance the presentation of the gospel with the implications of the gospel, just as scripture does.  No, we don't need to call the gospel 'law' or call law 'gospel', and we certainly don't need to confuse justification with sanctification, but we need to be cognizant of what it means when the gospel is proclaimed and people believe.  We can't divorce the message of the gospel from what it means to us.  Good news is only good news if it is good news to the hearer.  The fact that someone won the Powerball Lottery on Saturday was good news to them, but it didn't mean much to me.  So that means that news was a subjective kind of good news.  The gospel is not subjective, it is objective, in the sense that it is universal good news to 'all He came to save'.  It is not simply an academic concept, as real, objective, and historical factual as it is.  The content of the gospel is express in words (not how we live), but words mean things (to quote Rush Limbaugh).  And the gospel means something very real to all of us.

Turk approaches the issue with fairness and brotherly love, and I have to think Horton will answer in the same way.  (Hopefully the right way to dialogue about disagreements will truly embarrass Charlie and he can see how disruptive his tact can be.  The 'line' in the title of this post?...Charlie crossed it, in my opinion.) I don't say this pointing a finger only at Charlie, however. I can see myself falling into the same trap, if not careful.  I usually lack balance because I'm such a black-and-white person, and I need constant biblical correction from my peers (thank God for my wife and my fellow SS classmates) to not get unbalanced.  If Iva Bates was a knee (a reference that those of you who worked through Experiencing God will get), I'm a foot.  As in, 'I'll-plant-my-size-12-Nike-in-your-hiney' kind of foot. I hope I never grow to old to listen to correction and rebuke from other Godly people.  If I dish it out, I gotta take it!

I also look forward to Mike Horton's reply, as I think it will build up the kingdom (knowing Horton) and God will be honored (knowing Turk).

Plagiarism in the Church: How Big a Problem is it Really?

This post started out as a reply to a Collin Hansen post on this subject.  I found out about Collin's post by reading Justin Taylor's blog post.  I located Taylor's post by using Google Reader, where I follow him, among others.  (There, now I can't be accused of doing what I'm writing about!)

Some time ago, a few years after I wrote my doctoral dissertation, I was interested in trying to find out if anyone had used my work in any further work.  I entered a few phrases in Google, and was surprised how many hits I got from people who had used my words, but clearly hadn't seen my dissertation.  I know they hadn't seen it, because their work was published before mine was.  I know I didn't use their work, because in the process of writing a dissertation, one becomes pretty familiar with the research he or she is consulting (for those who have written one, you will appreciate the humor of the understatement, I hope).

So, do this little experiment yourself-

Take a phrase, sentence, or a few sentences from something YOU have written that you KNOW you did not plagiarize or borrow from another source…something original to you; and ideally, it should be something you have not published or made public.

Now, Google it.

Except for rare instances, you’ll be surprised at how many ‘hits’ you get. How? If you didn’t steal it, and it wasn’t published for others to steal from you, how did others use your original words?

I think there are several factors in play.

First, we are talking about a finite body of information (the gospel). Within the limitations of a language, there are only so many ways to say what the gospel is. There are bound to be repeats.  I'm talking here about unintentional, chance-based used of similar language.

Second, and this is probably the biggest factor, our memories are not like video tape…they are dynamic. We hear things, and then repeat those things, sometimes years in the future, without realizing where the thoughts came from.  We think these are original thoughts, but they are original only in the sense we have processed them in our minds and forgotten their genesis.  (It makes one wonder if there is truly any original thought...how are we to know that no one in history has ever thought what we are thinking?)

Third, in combination with the second factor above, the internet has made it possible to put almost any thought in writing in a public venue. In the past, we had a lot of unoriginal thoughts (though we didn’t realize it) and they passed through our minds, or were even spoken in public, and nobody noticed. Now, when we repackage an idea we think is original but is in fact something we heard in the past, we put it in a permanent, written format, and put it online where the net bots can quickly find it. This makes the (unintentional) problem more noticeable.

Finally, a rhetorical question: If we express what we understand to be the gospel, do we OWN that material? If not, how can the use of that verbiage be called theft if someone else uses our words?  If you believe that you DO own that material, what does that say about the gospel?  There was recently a series of posts over on the Resurgence blogs about copyright and Christian music intended for use in worship.  It was thought-provoking, though I don't know that it went far enough at times.  (Personally, I believe that if one writes worship music, markets it as worship music, and then profits from it above and  beyond ones costs, he or she is going to have a tough argument to convince me he or she has not robbed God by committing some form of usery against His people.  This isn't a fully-developed idea by me yet...I'm working on it.  I may be wrong. But it bugs me, deeply, to think that a gathering of believers, singing a song together to praise God, may be breaking the law by not paying a license fee to some organization.)  I wonder how much of that applies to sermons and Sunday School lessons?

There is certainly a large gap between intentional use of someone's thoughts and the mistaken regurgitation of an idea we heard long ago but don't really remember isn't original with us. But motives are hard to judge. I would urge caution before accusing someone else of plagiarizing your work, at least until you’ve tried the little experiment I mentioned above.

Blog Vacation?

Being on Christmas vacation makes me want to take a blog vacation as well.  So if you don't see much posted here for the next couple weeks, that's why.

Trying to think of a good new word for  it...blacation?  Blogation?  Vlogcation?

Hmmm.

Blog Experiments

Well, as you can see, the embedded YouTube video takes up more space than is allotted in the template.  I guess those things don't automatically scale down to the available space.

I'm still new at this thing (that's why my blog isn't nearly as pretty as some of the experience folks'!).

Speaking of experienced folks, one of the Pyromaniacs has taken over an old blog titled, The Calvinist Gadfly.  This looks like an experiment itself, but a promising one.  I'd recommend signing up because I have a feeling it will be an interesting and fun experience watching the thing morph into whatever it will become.



















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Things the Internet Has Killed (Part 2)

Today, I'll be taking up the next four things on the Newsweek list of Things the Internet Has Killed.  These are civility, the CD, the phone book, and letter writing.

If you missed it, the first post is here.

Civility- At first thought, this one is a no-brainer.  But upon reflection, I'm not so sure the internet is completely at fault for the loss of civility in our society.  I think the series of events and trends that started the process rolling go back as far as one can see, and certainly back to the 1960s.

Another major player in the loss of civility can certainly be laid at the feet of talk radio.  But if you look at the early pioneers of talk radio, such as Rush Limbaugh, you don't have to look hard to see that what he was doing back in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a response to a lack of civility in the media, particularly television 'news' programs; he didn't create the incivility himself.  Rush has certainly been on the cutting edge of the new style of radio entertainment, and has spawned entire industries of the same, both on the right and on the left (though the left has really struggled to pay the bills with their version of talk radio).

The early days of the internet, with its bulletin board discussion groups and the like, gave birth to the anonymous online personality.  It didn't take long, with the popularity of the early  ISPs such as CompuServe (CS) and AmericaOnline (AOL), for this idea to become common in the general public.  Just like how the anonymity of being in a vehicle increases the risk of actions like road rage, the even more anonymous anonymity of the online world made polite discourse nothing more than a nuisance to many.  Today, I can't even pull up a YouTube video to show my kids for fear of all the obscenity in the comments, right there on the page.  As G. K. Chesterton once said, total depravity is the one aspect of Scripture that is empirically verifiable.  He was right.  Look no further than the comments posted on most popular blogs.

The CD- If you are my age (46), the CD came along late enough in life, and lasted long enough, that is is a surprise to many that is is already becoming obsolete.  At least, the store-bought kind is becomming obsolete.  Now that I can download songs for 99 cents from Amazon.com, I don't bother buying albums any more.  Why pay ten or twelve bucks for an album with two or three good songs?  Now I can get the ones I want without all the fluff and filler.  But since I drive an older car, with no USB port, I have to burn these to a blank CD to listen to them when I'm on the road.  So that part of the CD market is still alive, at least until automobiles are all connected to the web (which is already happening) or have sound systems designed for the newer media, like Ipods and such (which is really already happening).

I do wonder, though, if the demise of all hard media will last.  After all, solid-state drives (things like USB thumb-drives and the memory inside your Ipod or MP3 player) haven't been around very long, and the durability over time of these types of storage is really not well known.  How many fifty-thousand-song MP3 collections have to disappear before everybody starts keeping hard-copy backups?  At the rate that online videos, music, and similar productions are growing, keeping up with all the backups will be a major industry unto itself.  Blank CDs will certainly be a part of this (I'm including DVDs under the label CD here.)

The Telephone Book- This is actually one of the few things that I'm glad to see die.  Just recently, I was contacted by AT&T Yellow Pages about renewing my ad with them.  (I run the typical ad for a college/university for my work.)  I gleefully told them I had bought my last YP ad and they need not bother contacting me again in the future.  They didn't seem surprised.  My ad cost me just under $2000 a year, and I'm not sure anyone ever saw it.  Back in the 'old days', when you opened the phone book when you needed to find any kind of business or institution, a phone book ad was essential.  These days, I don't know if anyone under my age ever picks one up.  I've read statistics in several recent reports showing that almost all phone number searching, as well as business address searching, is done online. 

I was recently at the Wayland Baptist main campus down in Plainview for a meeting.  In the area where student mailboxes are, they stacked close to a thousand copies of the yellow pages.  That was done several months ago, as I happened to be on campus when they were unloading them.  When I was back the other day, it was hard to tell that a single copy had been picked up by the students.  They just aren't interested in such a throwback to their grandparents' world.

Now, with smartphones, one does not even need to dial information (which costs money)...instead, one can browse the internet (for free) for the number.  The phone book is indeed dead.

Letter Writing-  Unlike the proverbial warning on your passenger mirror, this one is bigger than it appears.  As a college instructor for years, I often wondered why people couldn't write.  It wasn't long before I realized that folks couldn't write for two simple reasons:  they don't write, and they don't read.

I've believe for a long time that people write at their basic reading level.  That is, if you read comic books and pulp fiction, you write like those, and if you read Tolstoy and Shakespeare, or the Bible, you write at a level considerably higher than the comic book crowd.  Throw on top of the fact that most students don't read anymore (they watch TV or play video games instead), the secondary fact that the bulk of the writing done by most people of school age now is in the form of 140-characters-or-less text messages.  That certainly explains why essay questions on tests never go past two or three sentences...nobody can think that far out.  (I wonder what this has done to people's ability to play chess?)

One of the main reasons I started this blog was because I thought I was losing some of my ability to communicate effectively in writing.  Here's my first post, hinting at this reason.  Over the past year-and-a-half, my writing ability has certainly been helped by writing this blog, and I've been able to remember a lot of stuff I thought I'd forgotten about spelling, grammar, and all the other minutia of writing.

I would encourage everyone who cares about their ability to communicate or wants to keep their mind sharp to start a blog.  Maybe no one will ever read it (I don't think I have much of a following yet), but it will be beneficial to you to think, to put your thought into writing where others can challenge them, and then to defend (or change your mind about) the things you've written.


More in a few days.

Blogless Week

No blogs this week...at a leadership conference.

Monday's Meanderings- What do Sex and Salvation Have in Common? What about the Puritans?

Today's blog by Tim Challies is an excellent look at what sex and salvation have in common, and how they relate to each other.  It is much more useful stuff for defending traditional marriage than the usual fare like, "it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve".

Ever consider reading Puritan literature?  I didn't think so.  Neither did I, until I started seeing how much many of the pastors I respect were reading it.  Ligonier has a neat article on why we should, at least occasionally, read the Puritans.

Joe Carter had this funny, but true, quote a while back- "Whether they are Lutheran, Methodists, or Presbyterian, when it comes to religious engagement online, all bloggers act like Baptists."

Yes, I know this is a day late for a Monday post, but in the interest of being truly meandering, I meandered into Tuesday.

My plan is to start some regular features on this blog.  Here's the idea-

Monday's Meanderings (Mondays, of course)
Tuesday Twos (interesting posts or articles of interest that pair up, by chance or Providence...some Tuesdays)
Thursday Thuggery (some Thursdays...point out the nasty, mean evidence of total depravity in our society)
Friday Follies (humor, Fridays, of course)

I haven't decided what to do on Wednesdays.  Since I'm already a day behind, maybe I should make Wednesdays, Wednesday Wiggle-room, to get caught up.

:-)

Backing Up Your Blog

What happens if your blog host crashes?  Or maybe the federal government might shut down your hosting service...then what?  (Think that won't happen?  Check this out.)

I found a nifty, free backup program for blogs.  It works as easily as advertised.  Go here and check it out.  It takes about 10 seconds to download, and another 30 seconds or so to back up all your blog posts to your local hard drive.  In the event of a crash, you  can use it to restore your posts.

Neat. I backed up mine.  Back up yours.

(ha ha)