The UmBlog

Yesterday, I mentioned the bible reading plan of Robert Murray M'Cheyne . I've been reading through the Bible yearly for many years. Last year I started to include my family. So at dinner time I would read to them the Psalms and Proverbs readings from the One Year Bible . M'Cheyne developed a plan a 100 years ago that has an Old and New Testament reading for yourself and for your family. So we've been doing that. Right now we are in Luke and Exodus. Luke's chapters are so long, i often have mercy on the children and don't make them sit in their seats any longer and read Exodus. But we are at the 10 plagues so we've been reading that instead. It also helps that i've been reading from the Message. When Jesus sends the disciples out he tells them not to pack toothbrushes. its the little anachronisms that make all the difference. plus, the message reads aloud very easily. you can download the reading schedule here .

Anyone who can explain away postmodernism with quotes from William Lane Craig and Spinal Tap deserves abundant kudos, back slaps, shout outs, and props. Go read it and link to it. A quote of Craig's dismissal of PM with a modernist label is deadly. "Frankly, I don’t confront many students who are postmodernists. For all the faddish talk, I think it’s a myth. Students aren’t generally relativistic and pluralistic, except when it comes to ethics and religion. But that’s not postmodernism, that’s modernism. That’s old-style verificationism, which says things that are verifiable through the five senses are factual, but everything else is just a matter of taste (including ethics and religion). I think it’s a deceit of our age to say that modernism is dead." The aricle's conclusion is fantastic... No one seems to be able to intelligibly define what constitutes postmodernism yet almost everyone thinks they “know it when they see it.” The question, though, is why do we assume...

my friend, Pastor Jon , sent me today's link to the Birmingham News. Tons of pictures from their archives during the civil rights movement. thanks Jon for the tip. what a resource this is.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise. -- Maya Angelou

Christianity Today tells a story of relief in Pass Christian, Miss. "The collaboration between Christian groups has impressed Pass Christian's politicians. Christians represent 95 percent of relief volunteers, said Lou Rizzardi, Pass Christian's Ward 1 alderman who coordinates them. "Faith-based organizations come in here much more organized, ready to go to work," Rizzardi said. "They don't ask for anything." Mennonites re-roofed Trinity Church, an Episcopal congregation. The Assemblies of God donated a huge tent to shelter Crusade volunteers. Pass Christian's largest volunteer presence is Campus Crusade... At any given time, up to 300 Crusade volunteers are working. About 4,000 have become involved through Crusade recruitment and word of mouth. Crusade welcomes whosoever will: male or female, young adults, retirees, church groups of mixed ages, and their non-Christian friends. Some have returned to help. Crusade volunteers share the gospel wit...

You've got to give the U.S. Post Office credit for this list of all these people and events in American Black History that have been honored on stamps. There are many names I've never heard of, plenty we all know like MLK Jr. but also the obscure. Here are two examples BILL PICKETT William M. “Bill” Pickett invented the cowboy sport of steer wrestling, also called “bulldogging.” Employing a technique he saw ranch dogs use, Pickett would bite the steer’s lip to make it more docile and easier to control. Starring in this event, he and his horse Spradley became a box-office draw in rodeos at home and abroad. Pickett was voted into the National Cowboy and Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1971. This stamp was issued October 18, 1994. SALEM POOR Salem Poor earned his place in history during the Battle of Bunker Hill. For his deeds in that battle, he received a commendation extolling him as a “brave and gallant soldier.” He also served elsewhere with the American army during the Revolutionary Wa...

i'm filling out this application and i thought i'd share what i wrote for all other T-ball coaches to use in their volunteer descriptions. Coaching 5 year olds is exasperating and an experiment in self control and keeping perspective and adjusting expectations as one learns to teach children with home support and children sent there as a babysitting alternative. Attention spans are extremely short to begin with and get shorter depending on maturity. A t-ball coach learns to play all children with goal toward everyone's education and enjoyment. Not only does the coach encourage the distracted but assuages the committed in whom frustration foments. Coaches rejoice in victories relative to the player and minimizes the setbacks. In T-ball the coach makes sure everyone is a winner.

he seems like one of us born agains. his tats are bible verses. he was homeschooled in elementary school. unfortunately, the Lord decided he should play for the devil school, Duke. what did that get him? "...after a come-from-ahead loss to eventual champion Connecticut in the national semifinals -- in which Redick missed a crucial late shot -- it was time for a critical re-evaluation of the prodigy's progress." so he matures, even repented..."I regained my passion for basketball," Redick said. "My relationships with my family members were as good as they've ever been -- and my first two years, those were sometimes rocky. I met my girlfriend during that year and regained my spirituality...I try to be humble. I realize that any talent I have is a result of God's blessing. I don't feel the need to [talk trash] as much anymore." but still, i actually like the buy, but still... "in the final month of his college career, for headlong pursuit...

This is a neat interactive feature by National Geographic.

An african-american columnist in my state's largest newspaper wishes BHM wasn't necessary. i agree. but it has been necessary for me. there are so many things clamoring for high priority in my life. fortunately, i love history, and i do plenty of americna civil war reading, so researching black history was not a huge shift for me. i think forcing myself to blog on a different topic in black history every day enlarged my world. but in the past, i've also ignored it. and there are sad examples of it being half-heartedly celebrated, as he points out towards the end of his column. he writes, "A picture of the school's smiling multi-cultural director was attached to a poster promoting Black History Month. The promotion mentioned that he would be serving fried chicken that week in the school cafeteria. (I assumed the following week, the brotha would be cutting up watermelon for dessert.)" OUCH!!! This proposal is great though, "Alleyne says information on Benja...

Warner believed that it was possible for Christians to live together in the unity that comes when God’s love is present in people’s hearts. At the Beaver Dam meeting he stood up to say that he was forever finished with all religious groups that divided Christian people from each other. From then on, he said, he would be part of God’s church (or, the Church of God) and not others… Early Church of God people were very determined not to be organized like the churches of their day. So they did not have church buildings and congregations as we do today. Instead they often met outdoors in what were called “brush arbors” when the weather permitted them to be outside... Unfortunately, the early Church of God was still captive to its era. What started out as a movement to call all Christians into life together, ended up being another denomination (though even today, with their int’l headquarters and everything, most deny it is a denomination). In fact, I remember several people in the Church of...

Christianity Today Magazine has an amzing article on "majority world" missionaries. "But more than that, mission scholars agree that Koreans are a potent vanguard for an emerging missionary movement that is about to eclipse centuries of Western-dominated Protestant missions. They call it the "majority-world" mission movement. They say this new term—"majority world"—is necessary to replace the aging terms "third world" and "developing world." The radical change in Protestant missions is forcing scholars and missionaries to create new ways of talking about the global scene. The global majority (5.2 billion people) live in less developed nations. Of the world's 6.4 billion people, less than 18 percent live in developed nations. Scholars say the church's future in large measure rests in the hands of the global majority. "The day of Western missionary dominance is over, not because Western missionaries have died off,"...

"The June 2005 U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (“TIP”) Report estimates that between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year and that minors comprise up to 50% of that total number. The organization Free the Slaves suggests that there are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world. The F.B.I. suggests that human trafficking generates an estimated $9.5 billion in annual revenue." the details get more graphic after this. please educate yourself about modern slavery at some of these sites. International Justice Mission World Vision and their, Child Sex Tourism Prevention Project and Justice for Children whose history is recent, "In September 2002, JFCI Co-Founders Rob Morris, Lamont Hiebert and Desirea Rodgers went on an exploratory trip to SE Asia to determine how they could serve in the fight against child sex trafficking. In brothels, they saw young children being sold for sex and in safehomes they witnessed ...

"In January 2006 the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas won almost two-thirds of the seats in the Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections. The Hamas charter calls for the extermination of Jews as well as the destruction of Israel as an Islamic necessity. On this page you can view Hamas election statements and music videos - including from after the election - which make it clear that its goal remains the destruction of Israel, and that the preferred means it chooses is continued 'resistance' and Jihad, the PA euphemisms for terrorism."

MEMRI is a new source to me. The acronym stands for the Middle East Media Research Institute. Highlights from this article include some comments on the cartoon debacle. "The bombing of seven churches in seven quarters of two large cities - Baghdad and Kirkuk - simultaneously is a well-planned and well-executed terrorist act...Christian spokesmen maintain that the motive behind the bombings is to spread sedition (fitna) in the country, which could lead to a civil war, one of al-Zarqawi's stated goals. They accuse "Arab fanatics" whose bombing and whose "daily threats, kidnappings [and] discrimination" aim to "drive the Christian community out of Iraq." There are also Christian spokesmen who suggest that there might be some linkage between the bombings of the churches and the publication in Denmark and, subsequently in Norway and other European countries, of the offensive caricatures of Prophet Mohammad. However, Msgr. Rabban al Qas , the Chaldean ...

My wife has started blogging at the Smart Mom Blog . Not only is she a stunningly beautiful, extremely intelligent woman, she's a smart mom too. God is good to me.

The Asbury Park Press Online runs an article on a New Jersey church called The Church of Grace and Peace . "Associate Pastor Anthony Aquilino, who organized the program, said his church has held other Black History Month events in the past, focusing on the civil rights movement and achievements of black Americans. This year, the church focused on the impact the Christian faith had from early slave times through the civil rights movement, he said. "Many historians, black and white, credit the Christian faith of the slaves as being the single most important factor in unifying and sustaining them as a people," said Aquilino, the church's drama director. Among the presentations was a re-enactment of an 18th-century slave narrative. Olaudah Equiano, who was captured at age 11 and brought on a slave ship to America, would eventually purchase his freedom. At the age of 44, he wrote his autobiography, which would inspire Frederick Douglass nearly 100 years later. Equiano, p...

Mat invited me to speak at the UConn Intervarsity Fellowship tonight. If you ever get the invitation, go for it, they feed you, they give you T-shirts, you laugh, you cry, you worship with a passionate praise team...it's better than Cats. This is the talk i gave. it's a reworking of stuff i posted in the past few weeks... WAYS THE BIBLE WOULD BE DIFFERENT IF WRITTEN BY COLLEGE STUDENTS * The Last Supper would have been eaten the next morning - cold. * The Ten Commandments are actually only five, double-spaced, and written in a large font. * New edition every two years in order to limit reselling. * Paul's letter to the Romans becomes Paul's e-mail to abuse@romans.gov. * Reason Cain killed Abel: They were roommates. * Reason why Moses and followers walked in desert for 40 years: They didn't want to ask directions and look like Freshmen. * Instead of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, he would have put it off until the night before it was d...

Kathleen Cleaver, if you need refreshing, see yesterday's blog entry, spoke at Connecticut College . the myth is that Ms. Parks was so tired from her long hard day as a seamstress, she wouldn't rise and accidentally started the Civil Rights movement. She was tired, but not the physical kind. Wikipedia shares the real story in her own words, "During a 1956 radio interview with Sydney Rogers in West Oakland several months after her arrest, when asked why she had decided not to vacate her bus seat, Parks said, "I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen of Montgomery, Alabama." Parks also detailed her motivation in her autobiography, My Story People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty...

Pastor Jon is a friend, who has a nice blog. and this link is a great example of that. Fit, Fed, Fellows, Fruit

From a new blog, Evangelical Resources , by Michael Hamblin who writes, "However, my experience was that the individuals who were the most steeped in postmodern and emerging thought were the most hesitant about engaging with the homosexual community. They were the ones who were the most ‘conservative’ in how to go about reaching out so as to avoid being offensive, nearly to the point of paralysis. While I have an intimate understanding of the sensibilities of postmodern and emerging Christians in how they relate to the culture, I am hesitant to identify with emerging Christianity precisely because this sort of disconnect is too common."

In 1986, Reason magazine interviewed this man. If you don't know who he is, you might be like me, a mid-30's white man. "Cleaver burst upon the national scene in 1968 with the publication of Soul on Ice, a collection of his prison writings. Hip, revolutionary, and teeming with hatred for "everything American—including baseball and hot dogs, " Soul on Ice became the Bible of Black Power and Eldridge Cleaver the intellectuals' favorite black radical. The Black Panthers' early rhetoric had been decentralist, but the organization soon degenerated into Maoist politics and senseless violence. On April 6, 1968, Cleaver participated in a shootout with Oakland police—'60s legend has it that three carloads of Panthers were ambushed while Cleaver was urinating in a side street—in which 17-year-old Black Panther Bobby Hutton was killed. (Cleaver offers a different version of these events below.) To avoid being sent back to prison for his part in the Hutton shoot...

hit counters are dangerous things. if you are in a country where you shouldn't be reading this, my hit counter knows where you are. i'm assuming most of my hits are not anonymous web crawlers. but i really want you to leave a comment to say hello, or what you like/hate regarding this blog. i used to have a regular reader in Hawaii and in florida. i have some in the midwest. i have some canadian readers. i have some germans and danes, africans, middle easterners, asians, aussies, and kiwis. would any of you be willing to comment at this post and say hello? perhaps i'm not controversial enough to provoke comments, but my desire is to share my journey with God with the world.

The article is very interesting but this quote floors me. I think this is what James means in his epistle. "When Gladys Staines extended forgiveness to the men who burned alive her husband and two sons, her action captured the hearts of millions—and many turned to the Lord as a result. In my experience people often reject Jesus because of what they encounter in Christians, not because of what they encounter in the Word of God. If the Church in India authentically represents Jesus Christ, I believe the whole nation will follow Him."

an amazing blog full of links regarding the UR. get educated.

CAMPONTHIS: John Jasper - the Great Slave Preacher ...ordinary man; extraordinary God

I'm a scientist. I work with black scientists. The blogger is a black physicist. He is very interesting, especially in his interactions with a racist/male chauvinist commenter.

Victor Lana journals on Black History Month: Necessary and Compelling Reasons to Celebrate It . I noticed that my BHM entries don't link to blogs but to static sites. That tells me that none of the blogs i normally peruse care about BHM. So i used google's blog search . it seems most bloggers are talking about the point of BHM and the history. another depressing thing for me is that most of the blogs that looked interesting were by white people. alot of blogs were anti-BHM too. i like what Victor writes, "I can expect that some of the same people (crying over not enough hullabaloo over Columbus Day, St. Patrick’s Day, or even Arbor Day) who were annoyed about Dr. King’s day will be livid about this month long celebration. I can hear the questions: “Why do we have a Black History Month? What about Polish history? Danish history? Greek history?” The answer, gentle readers, is very obvious. None of these other nationalities were ever brought to this country as slaves. After b...

Somehow i read this movie review by Ebert of Dark Days and i read the Orwell book he was reminded of before the movie finally arrived in my mail slot. I'm noticing a theme in these books i read and movies i watch. This is a movie about homeless people who live in an abandoned railroad tunnel. Its an underground shanty town. And there is a small civilization there. i realized i'm fascinated by the ability of communities of humans to seek order in even the most desparate circumstances. Whether its the slaves on a wicked owner's plantation in Uncle Tom's Cabin, or unjustly imprisoned political victims in the gulags, or the anti-human culture of Mao and Stalin where people kept hoping to dehumanize themselves for only a day longer until they can bring change. There is something in all of us, and adversity, the problem of evil, brings it out.

William Seymour is highlighted at a blog new to me by charismatic pastor Paul Grabill at State College AoG. His blog is Beside the Point . He notes that this is the 100th anniversary of the Azusa St. Revival and wants to honor pastor Seymour. A brief biography from here says (italics are mine), Born on May 2, 1870 in Centerville (St. Mary Parish), Louisiana, his parents had been slaves and his father fought with the Union Army during the US Civil War. Seymour was reared in poverty and began traveling at a young age—living in Memphis, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. At age 25, he worked as a waiter for some of the most upscale restaurants and hotels in Indianapolis. It was in Indianapolis that Seymour personally accepted Jesus Christ, although during childhood he was affiliated with the Baptist Church and the Roman Catholic Church. (He was christened in the Catholic tradition on September 4, 1870, at the Church of the Assumption in Franklin, Louisiana.) Upon his adult conversion in Indi...

The BolgBlog replies as to why the emerging church doesn't look for youth pastors. its short enough to quote in full... "Recently I have had requests to help someone in a job search for a youth pastor position in an Emerging Church. I had to respond, that, as far as I can tell, that position does not translate into the emerging church. Yes, the position exists in the large seeker- oriented church with their various youth and young adult services. However, given the high commitment in emerging churches to training within the family structure, to all-age meetings where possible, to facilitation of participation rather than creating church for 'them', and to flat leadership over hierarchy, the youth pastor position does not continue into emerging churches, in the traditional sense of the term. Just as with the role of senior pastor, the role of youth pastor does not play a role in the churches of postmodernity..." also see the post church as mall ... This student ...

the eBay atheist has sold his services to some believers from Off the Map (motto: helping Christians be normal) to explore churches and give an outsider perspective to those of us who may be entrenched in the American Christian ghetto. this is extremely fascinating.

And now, men and women of America, is this a thing to be trifled with, apologized for, and passed over in silence? Farmers of Massachusetts, of New Hampshire, of Vermont, of Connecticut, who read this book by the blaze of your winter-evening fire, - strong-hearted, generous sailors and ship-owners of Maine, - is this a thing for you to countenance and encourage? Brave and generous men of New York, farmers of rich and joyous Ohio, and ye of the wide prairie states, - answer, is this a thing for you to protect and countenance? And you, mothers of America, - you who have learned, by the cradles of your own children, to love and feel for all mankind, - by the sacred love you bear your child; by your joy in his beautiful, spotless infancy; by the motherly pity and tenderness with which you guide his growing years; by the anxieties of his education; by the prayers you breathe for his soul's eternal good; - I beseech you, pity the mother who has all your affections, and not one legal righ...

The SBC Knowledge Network Explorer is a pretty good link farm that i might be using for the next week on BHM topics.

A friend recently asked me if I'm being a racist by blogging on black history. he wanted to know why i shouldn't call this a series on American history? i replied that i never learned this stuff in my american history education. then i listed a few names and books that i've recently blogged on. he thought he might add Uncle Tom's Cabin to his booklist. read it online . visit the historic site . at least you can't be imprisoned for owning a copy as in 1857 when Sam Green, a free black was sentenced to 10 years in jail by the state of Maryland when the book and a map of Canada were found in his home. More nuggets like this can be found here . this is all prelude to today's link at the top which i got to from the WEB Dubois learning senter page from yesterday.

I like free mp3's

"I am a flight attendant by trade, as well as a teacher of English. For seven years, I taught English to Thai Buddhist monks living in North America. This blog chronicles my journey into the Buddhist world." This sounds pretty neat.

W.E.B. DuBois learning center is a place to start.

"Richard Allen and his associate Absalom Jones were the leaders of the black Methodist community in Philadelphia in 1793 when a yellow fever epidemic broke out. Many people, black and white, were dying. Hundreds more fled the city. City officials approached Allen and asked if the black community could help serve as nurses to the suffering and help bury the dead. Allen and Jones recognized the racism inherent in the request: asking black folks to do the risky, dirty work for whites. But they consented—partly from compassion and partly to show the white community, in one more way, the moral and spiritual equality of blacks."

It seems the persecution i mentioned earlier didn't happen and things have turned out well for the Kingdom of God in India. The Indian blogger, Chandrakant Chavada , who expressed confidence in this whole situation only has more awesome reports of God's move in his nation.

unless you have a thick skin. i thought it was funny. "We’ve had some good input lately on why we’re not seeing church planting movement in the developing world to the same degree we’re seeing in the global south. If that’s the case we need to find something to do while nothing’s happening. Here’s 20 suggestions of what to do while we’re not multiplying churches. 1. Call yourself an apostle. Have some business cards printed. Hand them around. 2. Throw lots of money at subsidizing unhealthy, declining churches. 3. Throw money at “experimental missional initiatives” and never evaluate their effectiveness. 4. Set goals for multiplying new churches but don’t make it clear who is responsible. 5. Make someone responsible but don’t give them any real authority, discretionary time or sufficient funding. Change the appointment every two years. After ten years, save money by retiring the position and making everyone responsible. 6. Appoint a committee to undertake a study and write a report...

Codependency and Control:The Faustian Covenant is an excellent summary of, well, codependency and control, with tons of recommended books and links. Lately, i've been enjoying Diane's blog at crossroads:where faith and inquiry meet . her newest post looks at the same topic in terms of dictators like Hitler. i suggested she read up on Mao.

Abe Lincoln , although white, is an important part of BHM. Colson writes, "Lincoln saw Dred Scott as an outrage, in part because the Court claimed authority to decide for the other branches of government once and for all what the Constitution required. In so doing, it placed the other branches in a position of inferiority and subservience, something the founders specifically rejected. As president, Lincoln ignored Dred Scott. His administration treated free blacks as citizens, issuing them passports and other documents. In open defiance of the court ruling, he signed legislation that restricted slavery in the western territories."

I'm not satisfied with Sojourner Truth's representation on the net. Sojourner Truth Biography Page says, "In the 1820s, when still quite a young woman, she escaped from her New York owner after being brutally treated and sold away from her family. By the 1840s, Truth had become a powerful speaker against slavery, often moving her audiences to tears and exclamations of horror with her firsthand accounts of what many of her black brethren and sisters were enduring at the hands of cruel masters. She would tell listeners of how some slaves were kept cowed and afraid to act by beatings, sometimes with spiked sticks and chains; she herself, as a teenager, had been taken into the barn by her master one afternoon for absolutely no reason and tied up by the wrists. Then he tore the shirt from her back and whipped her with a bundle of sticks until her back bled. In a voice contemporaries described as rich and deep, she described how she refused to give him the satisfaction of screa...

This is a long post, but its shorter than the 5 articles i'm condensing. He loves the form of the church though admits its lack of description in the Bible. "Some people refuse to be a vital part of a congregation of Christians. They feel they are 'giving up their liberty' when they officially join a group of Christians and submit to their love and discipline. What liberty do they give up? Do they have the liberty to divorce themselves from 'the people of Christ' in their locality and not meet and worship with them? I don't think so. I am spiritually joined to all those who are also joined to Christ our common Lord. Every member of His body is my brother or sister. Do the NTS tell me to do certain things that can only be done by my being a member of a gathered group of His sheep? Yes. Do I have the liberty to be a spiritual lone wolf responsible to no other human beings? Where do the NTS give me the liberty to think and act as if I owe nothing to the ekkles...

this comes in the swirl of the SBC mish controversy, however, it contains gems on whether "American church" means a location or a worldview. "I'm back in the States now, trying to adjust to American Churchianity. And I don't like it. I don't like the people bent on form and not on substance. I don't like the churches that are an inch deep and a mile wide. I don't like churches that are led by extremely well-educated and well-versed pastors who think, because they hold all these degrees and attended such-and-such school that they are the authority...when without a heart broken for the lost, they're spinning their wheels. And I don't like that educated supposition of a person who has pastored a large church of perhaps 1,000...in a big ol' Southern town of 200,000...to spout off about what he learned in seminary gives him the corner on the world evangelism. I have seen it several times. That big time pastor goes to a people group of 10 millio...