"Answering Myths About Reformed Theology" -- YouTube Interview

My recent interview by Doreen Virtue on the common misconceptions people have about Reformed theology.

Myths About Reformed Theology

The Revenge of the Yankees Upon the Sign-Stealing Astros

As a Yankees fan, I've grown to intensely dislike the Astros.  They are good, smug, and have an edge about them that really makes it hard to lose to them, as the Yankees have.

I am not surprised about the recent revelation that the Astros developed a sophisticated form of cheating, which entailed using a centerfield camera to capture the catcher's signs to the pitcher, and then banging on a hidden trash can twice to alert the batter to the type of pitch that was coming (usually a breaking-ball).

One of the Yankee farm teams (the Staten Island Yankees) has decided to take revenge by trolling the Astros with a delightful give-away program.  (s.t. John Siston)

If you’re paying any attention – at all – to Major League Baseball these days, you’re well aware of the Houston Astros’ blatant and relatively appalling use of technology to steal signs through the use of cameras, monitors, text messages and … banging loudly on trash cans before certain pitches – including their at-bats during the World Series.

As punishment, the Astros just lost their GM and manager to a one-year suspension (they’ve both since been fired) in addition to a $5M fine (the max allowed by the league office) and a loss of their first and second round pick in both the 2020 and 2021 and draft. Frankly, I believe that’s a stern, but just response by MLB, even if it comes up short in a few ways.

Of course, the league isn’t the only one punishing the Astros for their misdeeds. The rest of baseball is taking care of that just fine:  https://twitter.com/SIYanks/status/1217180321973776385?s=20

Yep. The New York Yankees Class-A affiliate (the Staten Island Yankees) are hosting the Astros’ affiliate (the Tri-City Valley Cats) on September 3rd this season, and they’ll be handing out mini TRASH CANS AS THE GIVEAWAY!!

You can find the article here:  Yankees Minor League Affiliate Trolls Astros

Absolutely brilliant and great pay-back!

The Old Age App

Before

After

This App didn't work at all!

For man about to turn 65 . . . nothing to see here . . . 

But I do think baseball legend, Satchel Paige, was right when he quipped, "if you didn't know how old you was, how old would you be?" 

The Past Comes Back to Life

If you are a Southern Californian who has taken that magnificent drive up US 395 into the Owens Valley, you have no doubt passed Dehy Park in Independence, CA.  You also probably noticed the narrow gauge locomotive (Southern Pacific 4-6-0 # 18) which has been on on display at the entrance to the small park since about 1960.  You may even have toured the narrow gauge museum at Laws, CA, just north of Bishop, where #18's sister locomotive, #9, resides in the midst of rusting narrow gauge passenger coaches and assorted and odd freight cars.  I've posted on US 395 and the SP Narrow Gauge before (SP Narrow Gauge and US 395).

Several years ago the Carson & Colorado Railway, Inc. (a group of folks interested in fully restoring #18), began the task of removing the locomotive from the Dehy Park to a new engine house and then completely restoring the nearly century-old locomotive to pristine running condition.  That project was completed over a year ago.  The locomotive has run under live steam power several times.  Since #18 has little track to run on in its new home (the Eastern Sierra Museum), it was trucked over to Laws for a full-steam exhibition on much longer track (nearly a mile).

But the full-steam run at Laws (while better than than 1500 feet of track in Independence) did not allow for a full display of what a completely restored #18 could do on a longer run at operating speed. 

The Carson & Colorado folks recently loaned #18 to the Durango and Silverton Railroad in Durango, Co.  The folks who run the famed tourist train helped restore #18 and are quite interested in duplicating #18's oil-fired boiler system in their own coal-burning locomotives. 

Jerry Day's recent video (above) captures #18 in all is steam-era glory.  There is nothing like a steam-powered locomotive.  It sounds like it is alive and its driving mechanism is not hidden under an aluminum shell as with a modern diesel-electric.  You see how a steam locomotive works as it runs, even as you feel the raw power of super-heated steam, the pop-valves, and the steam whistle.  Nothing like it.

Thanks to all the folks at the Carson & Colorado for bring to life a great locomotive which had become a mere roadside curiosity.

What's Wrong in America and How to Fix It

This is well worth your time.  Arthur Brooks and Ben Sasse tackle a host of important issues raised in Ben's new book, Them

Some Things to Think About

A recent article Evangelical Gnosticism in First Things addresses the widespread influence of Gnostic thought upon the evangelical world.  The author notes . . .

I teach in a great books program at an Evangelical university. Almost all students in the program are born-and-bred Christians of the nondenominational variety. A number of them have been both thoroughly churched and educated through Christian schools or homeschooling curricula. Yet an overwhelming majority of these students do not believe in a bodily resurrection. While they trust in an afterlife of eternal bliss with God, most of them assume this will be disembodied bliss, in which the soul is finally free of its “meat suit” (a term they fondly use).

I first caught wind of this striking divergence from Christian orthodoxy in class last year, when we encountered Stoic visions of the afterlife. Cicero, for one, describes the body as a prison from which the immortal soul is mercifully freed upon death, whereas Seneca views the body as “nothing more or less than a fetter on my freedom,” one eventually “dissolved” when the soul is set loose. These conceptions were quite attractive to the students.

Resistance to the idea of a physical resurrection struck them as perfectly logical. “It doesn’t feel right to say there’s a human body in heaven, when the body is tied so closely to sin,” said one student. In all, fewer than ten of my forty students affirmed the orthodox teaching that we will ultimately have a body in our glorified, heavenly form. None of them realizes that these beliefs are unorthodox; this is not willful doctrinal error. This is an absence of knowledge about the foundational tenets of historical, creedal Christianity.

A second article is by Mark Hemingway of the Weekly Standard, who describes The Sharp Sting of the Babylon Bee.  I love the Bee, which has become a frequent subject of conversation among my family and friends.

Adam Ford, the founder and only full-time employee of the Babylon Bee, a Christian satire website, is clearly surprised at his success. “On the first of March, we celebrated two years in existence, and a couple of days later I noticed we had passed 100 million page views,” Ford tells The Weekly Standard. The Bee’s social media presence—it now has over 400,000 followers on Facebook and nearly 100,000 followers on Twitter—has grown quickly too. “All of this was totally organic. We’ve never run an ad, never boosted a post, never spent a dollar on spreading the word. And we’ve had no outside funding. Our growth has been totally driven by the content.”

If you’re one of the shrinking number of people to have never encountered an article from the Babylon Bee, the publication could be described as something like a Christian (largely Protestant) version of the Onion. With such headlines as “Treasure In Heaven Revealed To Be Bitcoin,” “Satan Sprinkles A Few More Stegosaurus Bones Across Nation To Test Christians’ Faith,” and “Opinion: My God Is An Imaginary Deification Of My Idiotic And Contradictory Personal Opinions,” you can see where the site gets some of its conceptual inspiration.

Finally, Scott Clark raises and answers the fascinating question, Where Is the Church Heading? Typically, I am not a fan of prognostication.  But I find Dr. Clark's essay to be insightful and expressing similar concerns to my own.  He concludes . . .

In most parts of the world, Biblical, orthodox Christianity is returning to the position it held before the rise of the European church-state complex we call Christendom. We are living in the wake of its collapse. This is a frightening reality for some but our hope is where it has always been, at the right hand of the Father. Christ is ruling the nations now and no movement, not Gnosticism, Moralism, Romanism, or Islamism can alter our Lord’s plans for his church and for the nations. After all, the Apostle Paul promised the church in Rome, “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). On that basis he pronounced peace upon a church that was about to endure a grave trial in which Christians would be put to a violent and sometimes fiery death merely for bearing the name of Christ and for refusing to renounce him. Yet, even in that, Christ’s sovereign will was being accomplished and the Spirit was drawing his elect to new life, true faith, and to union with the risen Christ. So it shall be. No one shall snatch them out of his hand (John 10:28).

Gene Veith on How Churches Can Better Retain Their Youth

Gene Veith's take on two recent LCMS studies exploring the reasons why our kids leave our churches, and why others stay.  How Can Churches Retain Their Youth?

J. S. Bach's Lutheranism

A great essay on Bach's Lutheranism--from the New York Times of all places:

Bach -- The Lutheran

(h.t. Rod Rosenbladt)

1968 -- The Year I Was Afraid

1968 was a terrible year in American history.  Those of us old enough to remember the assassinations of RFK and MLK, the riots and chaos at the Democrat National Convention in Chicago (along with a score of other calamities), might recall the questions which hung in the air as to whether or not the Republic would survive.  It did, thankfully, and actually moved forward.  He's a brief look back:  1968

(h.t. Mike D'Virgilio)

Ben Sasse on the Future of Cyber and Economic Warfare

Senator Ben Sasse (as Jonah's Goldberg's guest) discusses the possibility of future cyber and economic warfare with China and Russia.

Only Ben can discuss these things with authority while mentioning Calvin, two kingdoms, and North Korean Christians who have never known the freedom of assembly.

Sasse on the Remnant with Jonah Goldberg