Category: Announcements

Friends and Readers,

Apologies for the slow posting the past few days. I managed to run headlong in to a pretty good flu bug and am now just recovering.

As it is, I am headed out to Maine for holiday and so my posting will continue to be hit and miss for a couple weeks. God willing, I will return refreshed and ready to hit the ground running with more posts from the catbird seat.

Tomorrow I will have a Classis meeting in Akron, Ohio and then it is on to points East. Classis meetings never fail to raise interesting observations into the way our church culture is reasoning. Your prayers are coveted.

Thanks for your readership and friendship.

p.s. — To those I have promised responses to, I promise I will get to them before I return. Mr. V. I’m thinking especially of you

U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, responsible for the vehicular homicide of Mary Jo Kopechne, Senate floor manager for the 1965 immigration act which fundamentally and unalterably changed America’s demographics despite his then promise that, “our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually,” and annual water carrier for socialized health care in America has been reunited with Miss Kopechne in his death from brain cancer. Senator Kennedy outlived Miss Kopechne by just over 40 years dying at age 77.

Teddy Kennedy’s philandering and womanizing was consistent with the Kennedy family tradition. Father Joe, and brothers Jack and Bobby were legendary skirt chasers and Teddy followed in that family tradition. Another family tradition that Sen. Kennedy was involved in was national politics. His Father had been US ambassador to England during the Roosevelt administration and his Brothers Jack and Bobby each achieved high elective office with Jack serving as President and Bobby as Attorney General and US Senator from New York. Teddy Kennedy was the only son of Joe Kennedy to die of natural causes in his old age.

Edward Kennedy, despite ushering Mary Jo Kopechne to a watery demise went on to become an influential US Senator from Massachusetts. In 1980 Kennedy challenged incumbent Jimmy Carter for his party’s nomination to be the Presidential standard bearer but lost in a tight contest to the incumbent President. Kennedy’s political career also included his leading the way in crushing Robert Bork’s nomination to the US Supreme court. With adroit underhanded slime and malicious and misleading innuendo Sen. Kennedy almost single handedly tarred what had been Bork’s stellar personal and judicial reputation and in so doing help to create the current poisonous partisan climate that still prevails in Washington D.C. some 25 years later.

Speculation from Washington D.C. is that the Democratic party will use Kennedy’s death as a martyrdom in order to pass the current proposed socialized health care. Rumors are swirling that the Democratic party will label the pending legislation as the “Kennedy Memorial Health care legislation.”

Randy,

I don’t think I misunderstood you. You said, “I, too, used to “thwack” people upside the head with God’s Word.” By your use of the word “too” you did more than imply that Mrs. Nanna was, like you, being legalistic. As I pointed out, that was inaccurate.

I praise God that he rescued your from the GRBC with its dispensationalism and its fundamentalism. I pray that God will continue to deliver His people from the errors that their current respective faith communities entertain.

You said Randy,

“Still, now having said that, while legalism is ultimate a “Law+Grace=saved,” the end effect can be the same if a Christian believes that in order to be a “good Christian” or a “real Christian” then you really need to do “X,y,Z.” That is a very dangerous place to go and we need to be careful when we head there.”

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. I do know that throughout the Scriptures the Apostle Paul warns people against behavior that is inconsistent w/ confessing Christ. The Apostle Paul doesn’t seem to shy away from saying that we may not go on sinning that grace may abound.

As a contrary example to your statement the Apostle Paul seems to suggest that the Galatians can’t be good Christians if they deny being saved by faith alone. Another contrary example to your statement would be when the Apostle tells the Corinthians that they are not being very good Christians when they take one another to court, or when they allow the one caught in incest to remain a member of their Church. But perhaps I’m misunderstanding your concern?

Actually, Luther, in his writings was more predestinarian than Calvin ever was. And I agree w/ you that Lutherans don’t mind contradictions. That is why they have a mystery box to throw them in.

I think Anna’s post in which we are responding to is not the legalistic admonition that you fear it is. Thanks for your concern for her though. It is always good to be reminded that we need to tell people of God’s grace.

Reuters news agency reports that the Obama administration has come out with a new program intended to stimulate the US economy. This new program is called, “Cash for condoms.” The thinking is by stimulating the condom market that not only will condom producers increase the size of their market share but also that at the same time STD’s and unwanted pregnancies will decrease.

When Condom Czar Peter Gravida was asked if the “Cash for Condom” program was intended to intersect with the “Cash for Clunkers” program he answered by saying,

“It must be appreciated that the Auto industry is not the only manufacturer in our country that is to big to fail. It is also the case that the US Rubber industry is a industry that is to big to fail. As such we thought that in the interest of fairness we would provide seed money to the Rubber industry as well as to the Auto industry.”

Rumors are circulating among Washington insiders that next week, the Obama Administration will report its “Cash for Cancer” program. The thinking here is that by promoting financial incentive for contracting cancer there will be the effect of reducing the unwanted surplus human population that is such a burden on our health care industry.