Derek makes a fine argument for the benefits of studying God’s word. It is a spiritual discipline that has blessings that cannot often be described. Funny thing: I copied and pasted his post into Microsoft Word so that I could dwell and ruminate on it at my leisure and the spell checker suggested “bondservant” to replace the unrecognized word “Zondervan.” Coincidence? I think not.

Shouldn’t it be no more movie popcorn?
Patton’s article is interesting – although I disagree with some of his conclusions. The idea of maturity is interesting – but this is also a continuing process. We have not matured, but are maturing. This is, I think where Patton goes off track – reformed theology is not the pinnacle of the maturation process, but is part of the process.
Derek’s stuff is great – I’ve subscribed and listened to his podcasts as well. I don’t always agree, but his thinking and point of view is always challenging.
And – I have no intention of asking Rick…

Re: David Brooks’ Opinion Piece:
As I was reading it, I thought that maybe he was describing the bitter hatred-filled “us vs. them” mentality of many people on the Right that see any Muslim as less-than-human, and thus rationalizing the constant killing of peoples in those Muslim countries as merely “acts of war.” Dehumanizing your enemy makes it easier to kill him.
Also, I wanted to take issue with the idea that we “have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world.” Our worldview (or as Brooks calls it, “the story that explains it all”) is less chosen than Brooks make it. More often than not, the narrative that we hold is not “chosen,” it is simply a part of who we are, much like the list of things that Brooks lists in his first paragraph. Our worldview narrative is a composition of (to paraphrase Brooks here): the history we are born into that is well under way, the cultures, nations, languages and social conditions that we didn?t choose, and even the genetic predispositions that we can?t control (I think of a friend of mine who is unable to control her fear and timidity, and then watches Glenn Beck as religiously as she goes to church, convinced that “others” are out to get her and her freedoms). While it is certainly true that a person can change his or her worldview story, this usually must be through some form of “conversion” (I know that this blog is authored by a specialist in the sociology of “conversion!”).
So, as it pertains to the Ft. Hood / Nidal Malik Hasan story, we have two conflicting worldviews in our nation (and everybody else is in the middle of the conflict): On one side are Americans who have already made Muslims the “other” that we must fight and defeat (“they” attacked us on 9/11, “they” are out to destroy our liberties, it’s either us or “them”), and on the other side are Americans who so react against this narrative that they do everything they can to counter it, including those who portrayed Nidal Malik Hasan as a victim, instead of the what he actually was, after the attack.

Re: Jars of Clay
I didn’t realize that they were such coffee geeks (like you and I are!). I’ll send you some of their music to try out. They are one of the few Christian bands that I like (you know my idiosyncratic musical taste). Did you see them on the cover of Christianity Today? Excellent article.

Advice for bears fans — forget the Packer QB, a mere technicality, root for the Vikings.

VanguardChurch – blog and wesite
Also Re: Jars of Clay
last Christmas, my wife Linda and I did something we’re going to do again this year:
With every gift we gave, we attached a little card that told the recipient that $1 was given in their name to bood:water mission. We made the cards by using some stickers we got from them saying, “$1 = one year of water for an African.”

Try rooting for the Bengals or the Colts.

Scot,
If you like stunning landscape photography, check out this website:
http://paulmarcellini.com/PaulMarcellini.com/Home.html
This is a brother in Miami. Most of his photography is done in the Everglades and South Florida, but he’s also done work elsewhere.