This is "Orthodoxy" ?!

In a discussion thread over on the Thinking Anglicans website about the ongoing GAFCON conf., commenter Ford Elms sums the whole "orthodox" Anglican mess up quite nicely:

Would anyone care to explain to me how Scripture as the sole authority in the Church, the Real Absence, denial of Baptismal regeneration, Subordination of the Son to the Father in the Trinity, PSA as the main, if not only, understanding of the Atonement, and any of the other heterodox ideas taught by people like Jensen, can be called in any way, shape, or form "orthodoxy"? Seriously. They keep referring to "the faith once and for all delivered to the saints" while practicing a form of Christianity that would be utterly unrecognizable as Christianity to anyone born more than 600 years ago. Whether or not it represents a better discernment of the will of God for His people is immaterial. It could well be right, but how in the name of God can it be called "orthodox"? --- Ford Elms

"How ?" indeed...

Probable Water Ice on Mars

A press release from the Phoenix Lander mission at the Univ. of Arizona says:

Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

W00t! Best day ever for planetary science in our solar system!

The "Destruction of Marriage" Amendment

Author and blogger John Scalzi has a very clear-headed take on the proposed anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution of California up on his blog at Destroying Marriages to “Protect” Marriage. Scalzi deftly brushes aside all the fluff & spin around this issue and lets you know precisely what the results would be:

What this means is that if the initiative passes, then likely thousands of legal, actual, state-recognized and sanctioned marriages will disappear overnight. Thousands of loving couples will be forcibly removed from the legal state of marriage, not because they have chosen to do so, but because others have decided that they shouldn’t allowed to be recognized as having a marriage. I imagine it will be single largest forced annulment action between married couples in the history of the United States. This initiative will unambiguously, concretely and irrevocably destroy marriages. This initiative murders marriages.

Naturally, this initiative is called the “California Marriage Protection Act.”

Go thou, and read.

QotD for 18 June, 2008

From the article Former SBC Leader Declares Denomination in 'Free Fall' over on Ethics Daily:

You know why we don't win the lost? Because we don't like them. They are different from us. We don't care for them. We have no real love for them. --- Jimmy Draper, former head of LifeWay Christian Resources and SBC president, 1983-84

A rather blunt statement that illustrates one of the things I like least about conservative evangelicals, whether they're Baptists, AoG, "conservative Anglicans," or members of the local, nondenominational megachurch - their sheer dislike for anyone who's not just like them. Everything seems to revolve around who they dislike and what they disapprove of.

It truly shocks and puzzles me how one can read the Gospels and yet get to a place like that...

[hat tip to Dan over at Culture Choc]

QotD for 17 June, 2008

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause. --- P.J. O'Rourke

M..M..M..My Sharona

Heard this quintessential tune from The Knack on the car radio at lunch today. Luckily, it's been a number of years since 1979 :) so I was able to crank it up and bop along to the opening riff and not actively gag at the rest of the song.

And guess what ? Not only is the Sharona in the song a real person (which I think most folks already knew), but she's on the web* as a real estate agent in Los Angeles. Too weird.

*Note: didn't link to the main page, as it plays music (guess what?) with no apparent way to turn it off. Bad web developer, BAD.

QotD for 11 June, 2008

The (neo-con, Republican) counterrevolution is over. For 40 years the radical right has sought to uproot and overturn the American domestic and global order created by centrist liberals of both parties between the 1930s and the 1970s. Liberalism has survived, while the right is not only defeated but also demoralized, dispersed and diminishing. --- Michael Lind, Whitehead senior fellow at the New America Foundation, in the article Relax, liberals. You've already won

Unexpected Benefits of Train Travel

Nine Unexpected Benefits of Trains is up over on the ecogeek blog, and it's an interesting read. No nagging! Legroom! Seats that actually recline! and...

If you want to pee, go pee.. There’s never a time on a train when you can’t stand up and do whatever you want. And that includes having a nice lunch in the dining car, which is what I’m going to go do now.

I really enjoyed a train trip my (then soon-to-be) wife and I took from Chicago to Dallas years ago, though certainly a plane ride would've been much faster. But for trips under, say, 250 miles or so, it looks like you won't loose anything but aggravation.

Maybe those proposed high-speed rail lines along the Trans-Texas Corridor are an even better idea than I thought.

Rock and Roll as Fast Food Burgers

Okay, I know this stuff is like the fast food burgers of the pop music world, but...

Journey has a new album! Time to queue them up on the old iPod along with some REO Speedwagon and Boston ;)



[and a big "whoa, dude!" to John Scalzi for the news]

QotD for 4 June, 2008

Barbecue sauce is like a beautiful woman. If it's too sweet, it's bound to be hiding something. --- Lyle Lovett