Why does this make my skin crawl?

Click on the title to see information about a rather strange combination of speakers for a "Rethink Conference" to be held in January. I just can't envision this particular mix of beliefs and talents....

---Katie

Fascinating Website

I like old buildings. One of my most interesting experiences when I was a bit younger (ahem!) was looking through abandoned houses in middle South Carolina when I was in college. It was all legal; the family of one of my classmates owned the property.

I just discovered this website (click on the title!) that indulges my love for exploring old, abandoned buildings. It is a little creepy because the photographer likes old mental hospitals and such things. There are other things as well, like a luxury hotel and an old mine.

I just thought I'd share it with you - it's very cool!

---Katie

ELCA Sexuality Study Deadline Nov. 1!!!

If you are planning to participate in the third part of the ELCA Sexuality Study, time is running out! Click on the title for the link.

I am having a hard time bringing myself to do it because of the way I thought Galatians was abused during the Churchwide Assembly, but I am going to try. Our input does have an effect, even if it doesn't as much as we wish it did.

---Katie

Lutheran Terminology

This is from an old post on Rev. Paul McCain's blog, Cyberbretheren. Some of it scarily sounds like what is being taught in the ELCA. Some of the rest of it I wish were being taught in the ELCA.

A Brief Lexicon of Lutheran Terminology for the Unlearned

Predestination: What do you think I am, some kind of Calvinist?

Law: Everything that I don't have to do because I'm baptized.

Gospel: The unconditional pronouncement of the forgiveness of sins.

Repent: That thing I never have to do because of the Gospel.

Believe: That other thing I never have to do because of my baptism.

Baptism: A sacrament for only babies that guarantees their salvation after they grow up and quit attending church.

Conversion: When a baby gets baptized. Adults are never converted.

Evangelism: My pastor's job. That's why adults are never converted.

Catechism: Doctrines that I don't know, but my pastor is supposed to teach my kids.

Confirmation: The wonderful day on which a 13-year-old is allowed to receive the Lord's Supper for the first and last time.

Book of Concord: The comprehensive book of everything my pastor believes.

Liturgy: The order of service, which my children are supposed to miraculously learn by playing with toys during the worship hour.

Pietism: The belief that Christians ought to care about obeying God.

Pietist: Anyone more scrupulous about obeying God than me.

Good Works: What makes the Pietists stand out from the real Lutherans. Only done for the purpose of earning one's salvation.

Legalism: Making me feel guilty or obligated to exercise moral discipline.

Papist: Anyone who foolishly believes that the pope speaks with God's infallible voice.

Martin Luther: 16th-century Reformer who spoke with God's infallible voice.

The Bible: A collection of holy books consisting of Genesis 1 and 2, the Ten

Commandments, the four Gospels, and the book of Galatians.

Old Testament: A collection of books that Jews and Calvinists teach their children.

"The Bible is a book for heretics": Common erroneous saying of 16th-century papists.

Revelation: A book for heretics.

Church Discipline: Not a mark of the Church, therefore not required for or practiced by Lutheran churches. We hear that the Pietists are all into it, though.

Pastor: The guy who is responsible for teaching the faith to my children, preaching the Gospel to my neighbor, making our church grow, and making me feel good about myself.

Adiophora: Anything that is left free by Scripture, such as church government.

Episcopal polity: A forbidden form of church government, since Catholics do it.

Presbyterian polity: Another forbidden form of government, since Calvinists do it.

Congregational polity: The only acceptable form of government, since Walther instituted it.

Faith: The belief that what I do is irrelevant to my salvation.

Justification: A legal status of righteousness before God that is achieved by continually reminding one's self that God doesn't care what you do.

---Katie

Tony Snow is amazing.

What an amazing Christian man!

Click on the title to read the entire article on the Christianity Today site.

Cancer's Unexpected Blessings
When you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change.

Tony Snow

July 20, 2007

Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23 Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen—leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but resigned August 31. CT asked Snow what spiritual lessons he has been learning through the ordeal.

Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.

Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

Be sure to read the rest. It's worth it.

---Katie

Do you believe in defending yourself? You must be nuts.

This is very troubling.

College Admins: If You Favor Second Amendment Rights, You Must Be Crazy
By Jon Sanders
Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A Minnesota college student was suspended and ordered to undergo "mental health evaluation" for his response to campuswide e-mails from school officials concerning the Virginia Tech massacre.

The college, Hamline University, a private, liberal-arts institution affiliated with the Methodist Church, has a policy on "Freedom of Expression and Inquiry" that guarantees that Hamline students will be "free to examine and discuss all questions of interest to them and to express opinions publicly or privately."

With such a strong guarantee on students' "freedom from censorship and control" by the university, student Troy Scheffler's e-mail must have been horrifically bad to warrant such a crackdown. Right?

Wrong. What Scheffler did was make a gun-rights case for concealed-carry permits on campus to help ward off potential Cho Seung-Huis before they strike Hamline. This was no monstrous act; in fact, it was in line with public debate across the nation following Cho's rampage, not to mention an issue of perennial debate in America. Many researchers, most notably John R. Lott Jr., have shown conclusively that gun ownership itself wards off crime while laws banning guns lead to increases in crimes. Criminals are less likely to strike if they have reason to believe their prospective victims could be armed.

Scheffler had written in his April 17 e-mail reply to David Stern, Hamline vice president of student affairs, that "Considering this university also pushes 'diversity' initiatives like VA Tech, maybe its 'leadership' will reconsider [Hamline's] ban on conceal carry law abiding gun owners... Ironically, according to a few VA Tech forums, there are plenty of students complaining that this wouldn't have happened if the school wouldn't have banned their permits a few months ago."

He added, "I just don't understand why leftists don't understand that criminals don't care about laws; that is why they’re criminals... Maybe this school will reconsider its repression of law abiding citizens rights."

Two days later, Hamline President Linda Hanson e-mailed the campus about Virginia Tech. Scheffler replied to that e-mail also, expanding upon his comments to Stern.

In both messages, Scheffler made it clear to all but the most hysterically inclined person that his advocacy of concealed-carry permits was to protect the students from criminals. Scheffler recognized that this protection would be afforded primarily by predators' foreknowledge that any one of the students at Hamline could shoot back, but also – given that the administrators had both brought up the VT massacre – by students being able to stop a killing rampage before it got started.

In short, what Scheffler wrote was no preamble to a blood-lusty explosion of violence. At worst it was crude criticism of the university administration combined with a stark assessment of the true risk of a concealed-carry society like Virginia Tech's: total defenselessness against a Columbine-inspired mass murderer. Regardless, it should have been protected by the university's stated policy guaranteeing free expression.

Nevertheless, on April 23 Scheffler received a hand-delivered letter from Dean of Students Alan Sickbert that informed him his e-mails were "deemed to be threatening and thus an alleged violation of the Hamline University Judicial Code" and that he was placed on "interim suspension" to be lifted only after he agreed to a psychological evaluation by a licensed mental health professional.

Click on the title to read the rest.

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I know that a lot of people are afraid of guns and would never want to have one on their person or in their homes. I also know people who support gun rights but for various personal reasons cannot or will not have a gun. Yet those of us who are willing to train, practice and apply for a concealed carry permit should not be denied that right. Statistics show that the very fact that we do so provides some protection for our fellow citizens. The fact that some percentage of the population could be armed does deter some crime. As I have said before, if one of the professors or students at VA Tech had been legally armed, some, if not most, of the lives could have been saved. We will never know in that particular instance. We may never know in future instances if our institutions of higher learning continue to insist that an unarmed campus is a safe campus. Why do you think criminals choose campuses to shoot up? They can be reasonably certain they will not face armed opposition.

As an aside, I think this might be a big thing in the Methodist Church. Several years ago I attended a conflict resolution training event in a Methodist church. One of the people I trained with was also a CCW permit holder and we were both surprised that we were prohibited from carrying on the church property. (I used to work in a church - considering some of the people who show up there looking for "help" being armed is not such a bad idea.) More recently, we vacationed at Lake Junaluska, a Methodist assembly in NC. We stayed in the old Lambuth Inn. It was lovely. However, they prominently display a sign on the front door prohibiting concealed carry. Now, I did not feel unsafe there as I normally do in a hotel. It did not seem to me to be a place a criminal would be drawn to. However, I did wonder how they proposed to protect me if someone did decide to take advantage of this group of disarmed victims. After all, they did not want me to be capable of defending myself! As much as I liked the environment, we will probably choose another facility on our next trip to the mountains, one that will not deny us our lawful rights.

---Katie

Education is too important to be left to the government.

The real reason homeschooling and all other school choice options should be expanded.

From Jeff Jacoby's column:

Big Brother at school

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | October 17, 2007

"FREEDOM of education, being an essential of civil and religious liberty . . . must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever," the party's national platform declared. "We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental . . . doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government."

That ringing endorsement of parental supremacy in education was adopted by the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1892, which just goes to show what was possible before the Democratic Party was taken hostage by the teachers unions. (Wondrous to relate, the platform also warned that "the tendency to centralize all power at the federal capital has become a menace," blasted barriers to free trade as "robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few," and pledged "relentless opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditure.")

Today, on education as on so much else, the Democrats sing from a different hymnal. When the party's presidential candidates debated at Dartmouth College recently, they were asked about a controversial incident in Lexington, Mass., where a second-grade teacher, to the dismay of several parents, had read her young students a story celebrating same-sex marriage. Were the candidates "comfortable" with that?

"Yes, absolutely," former senator John Edwards promptly replied. "I want my children . . . to be exposed to all the information . . . even in second grade . . . because I don't want to impose my view. Nobody made me God. I don't get to decide on behalf of my family or my children. . . . I don't get to impose on them what it is that I believe is right." None of the other candidates disagreed, even though most of them say they oppose same-sex marriage.

Thus in a little over 100 years, the Democratic Party - and much of the Republican Party - has been transformed from a champion of "parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children" to a party whose leaders believe that parents "don't get to impose" their views and values on what their kids are taught in school. Do American parents see anything wrong with that? Apparently not: The majority of them dutifully enroll their children in government-operated schools, where the only views and values permitted are the ones prescribed by the state.

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Click on the title to read the rest.

As a youth pastor once said to me, "You had better indoctrinate your kids or someone else will!" I find it appalling the number of parents who don't think it is their right and responsibility to teach their kids right from wrong and how to live constructively in society. Frankly, I don't think it is "progressive" or "open-minded." I think it is pure laziness.

---Katie

Al Gore is not a climatologist....

or a meteorologist, or a scientist of any kind. People do realize that, don't they?

Now this man has the credentials to talk about our changing climate:

ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

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Click on the title for the rest of the article!

Now, I guess the next question would be, "Why are people so eager to believe this foolishness?" Hmmm.

---Katie

How Important is Biology?

I watched a drama on vacation that included a story line about two couples whose babies were switched in the hospital. (The dad whose baby was chronically ill had switched his daughter for another baby without anyone's knowledge and the switch was discovered months later.) I wondered then what the best thing to do would be in that situation. Would it be better to swap back and have the baby that is yours biologically or should the parents stick with the baby they have bonded with, or more importantly, the baby who has bonded to them? I can't imagine how difficult that situation would be.

In Australia, two sets of parents have decided they cannot part with the babies they brought home from the hospital even though they were switched before they came home. Click on the title for the story.

Wow. Unimaginable.

---Katie

Happy Indigenous Resistance Day!

You gotta see this over on GOPublius! Click on the title.

Oh, and how DARE you celebrate Columbus Day!

---Katie

Renewing Old Aquaintances

We just had a marvelous week. We actually got out of town for an entire week! The best part of our trip was a reunion of the Lutheran Student Movement members from the last 40 or more years at our alma mater, Clemson University. My hubby's roommate from college was there as was one of my bridesmaids and the pastor who did our wedding - he was also the pastor who was in charge of the LSM group we attended. Many other folks from "our generation" were there. At one point I said to my daughter, "Look, all the people sitting at these two tables were at our wedding!" It was very cool. And except for how we look (!) no one had changed too much! It was like coming home. I went off to college knowing no one there and LSM was my family there. And that is where I met hubby as well!

We had a barbecue on Friday, went to the pastor's open house, tailgated and attended the game (the only disappointment) on Saturday, and attended church at University Lutheran (where we got married almost 29 years ago) on Sunday. After lunch with my in-laws, we headed for the mountains for a few days and I'll post later about that!

---Katie