metapundit.net

Starry Night

Tue, 06 Aug 2013 23:00:00 PST

All my life I've been involved in camping, mostly at Camp Peaceful Pines up in the Sierras. I took this picture there recently and this view is what getting up into the mountains is all about for me.

Oh I enjoy hiking. I like the exercise, the vistas, the sense of accomplishment that comes from scaling a peak, the camraderie of shared struggle.

I like nature. I enjoy the cool water, the fresh air, the scent of pines, the evidence of wildlife everywhere. I love the quiet in the middle of the day when you can hear the wind whispering and the squirrels chattering. But that view is what it's all about.

I enjoy getting away from the distractions and playing in the great outdoors. It's probably a good thing to get out of cell range now and again, to leave the gadgets and electronics at home and enjoy a warm fire, hot chocolate, lazily chatting in lawn chairs in the sun while not doing much of anything. There is value in watching my kids build a dam in the stream or jump excitedly from rock to rock accompanied by constant calls of "look at me!" I remember being a kid at camp myself - exploring, "discovering" wonders in the well trod ground around the camp.

I love a camp kitchen - I'm happy cleaning my cast iron skillets, polishing the great griddle on the stove, sharpening the knives. I don't think anything else I do has quite as much satisfaction as organizing and cooking a high quality meal from scratch for hungry campers - hearing the gratitude and praise that good food administered to a hungry belly naturally evokes (People are always hungry at camp - even when they're eating huge meals. I think its the altitude.) Some of my most enduring happy memories are working summers with my mom or my dad in the kitchen up in the mountains. But that view...

Here's the thing - its not even a good picture. (How do you take a picture that captures the majesty of a night sky? I set my camera on a tiny tripod, set the exposure for 30 seconds and used a delay to take the picture hoping to reduce shakiness. The result was a picture that was nearly black until I processed it and turned up contrast and brightness quite a bit.) But I've seen the original and this picture does for me what a snapshot is supposed to: calls to mind, evokes the emotions of the original...

Up there the night is different. For one thing it actually gets dark. And quiet! We mostly don't know what dark is: darkness unilluminated by headlights, streetlights, porchlights, cell phone screens. And modern life has an unremitting soundtrack: cars, horns, distant sirens and trains. Up at camp when the electric generator shuts off for the night its possible to go out where you can't see a source of artificial illumination and you don't hear a sound.

Over the years I've made friends with the dark and the quiet. It's a slow process but once your body accustoms itself to the shock the once uniform blackness resolves to many shades of gray. Look up - and you can see the silhouettes of the great tree trunks against the night sky. Look around - the granite boulders almost give off a glow. Just give your eyes a chance to adjust to the lack of light and all sorts of details of the night come into focus. And the sound, or the lack of it, soon fades as you become aware - there's the gurgling of the creek, the sound of your own footsteps, perhaps even the beating of your heart if you are very still...

If you'll allow it the night can be a comfortable blanket. A quilt of darkness and silence that doesn't have to be oppressive, doesn't have to be merely endured but can feel ... comfortable and cozy! It makes me aware of myself: Here I am and what I am most conscious of... is me. I can hear my heart beating. I can feel the passage of time with its slow but inexorable drip drip drip of seconds passing by. I am acutely conscious of the texture of the rock I am sitting on, the pain of the great cold of the mountain seeping into my body through the granite. Every breath of wind across my face and every breath I take in response fills my senses. And then I look up at the sky.

The night sky in the mountains is a different sky than the one I know. Up high, above the pollution and haze, above the lights of urban environments, the stars shine with an almost fierce splendor. There are so many! Uncountable yet distinct pinpricks of light and behind them a smear of cloudiness I know to be the Milky Way - space vast beyond comprehension and filled with stars I can't even see.

This is the only place I am conscious of starlight. The stars cast a visible light by which I can dimly see. This is the only place I have been tempted to shield my eyes from the glare of the night sky. And looking up at the intense infinity my sense of self recedes - I am pinprick, a mote on a lump circling a pinprick in that vast night sky.

I've never done much in the way of spiritual disciplines or practices. I have trouble with much that the saints describes as typifying their spiritual life: long prayer, meditation and contemplation. Mindfulness. But a few minutes - or is it hours? - under the stars and the black sky is refreshing to me and provides a rich store of tranquility to draw from when I come down from the hills and go back to my "normal" life.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him?
Psalm 4

Dallas Willard Died Today

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:44:59 PST

Cleaning out the camera

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:42:50 PST

I'm cleaning out the camera. Do I only take pictures of food now?

Yup. (Fried Kale. Good Stuff! Who knew?)

Yes. (Homesick Texan would approve!)

Uh-huh.

Ok, now to be fair - this was an event. Our Church made and delivered supper to a variety of folk.

Let's see - we did celebrate birthdays.

And we went to the coast.

I guess there's more to life than "Good Eats"!

Why I am an education anarchist, part 4,423

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:51:55 PST

Happycrow is on fire

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 08:58:42 PST

The Pope announced his retirement.

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 08:49:39 PST

Apparently the Pope is going to retire.

Too soon?

Reflection on Election Night Communion

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 22:31:56 PST

Last Tuesday I hosted a communion service in my home. Tuesday was election Tuesday and the purpose of the event was to challenge Christians to demonstrate concretely that their allegiance to Jesus is more worthwhile, more important, than their political beliefs.

We set up a communion station with a Bible and the bread and the cup and invited participants to spend some time meditating on the Kingly rule of Jesus before taking the elements. We invited participants to stay afterwards to enjoy fellowship with the only stipulation being: No politics allowed!

This may have been the most counter-cultural thing I've ever done - and I say this as someone who grew up without a TV, never going to the movies, etc.

In my experience very conservative Christians frequently see the counter-cultural role their faith plays purely in the sense of negation. Unlike the world, they don't - don't take in media like movies and music, don't participate in activities that have historically had a less than moral association like dancing or playing some games or sports.

Many evangelicals on the other hand have rejected the exclusionary approach and instead seem to take a me-too approach to expressing the counter cultural aspects of their faith. And so we have Christian movies, Christian music, Christian Halloween parties and so on - just like the surrounding culture but with morally objectionable elements removed.

Neiher of these approaches has ever set right with me. But Tuesday night I did neither. The communion service was not an alternative to voting or a rejection - some who attended did vote and some chose not to. But we intended to proclaim our citizenship first and foremost in the Kingdom of heaven and I believe we suceeded! I invited a lot of people I know but actually got a young couple I had never met before (she found us via Rachel Held Evan's blog which mentioned the national event. The national Election Day Communion site listed our location).

We sat and talked, celebrating our common faith in Jesus. Instead of bemoaning or cheering the election results we talked together about our faith backgrounds and Church experiences. I ended the evening having no idea if my guests were liberals or conservatives - instead I know that they are my brother and sister in Christ!

I have political opinions. On some other night I would even be happy to share them. But on this night when the people all around, even many believers, were convinced that the most important question is whether you voted for the right man, I was happy to declare that God is in heaven and that Jesus is still Lord. Against this proclamation all else recedes to its rightful place. Making that declaration and living like it is so is more countercultural than anything else any Christian can do.

PHP Newbie Night at Modesto Scripting Languages Meetup

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:18:01 PST

Most of my tech stuff goes on at simeonfranklin.com nowadays - but I'd like to note that the Modesto Scripting Languages Meetup now has 17 members and we had our third meetup!

Our topic this time was PHP Newbie Night I took a trip down memory lane and presented my Top Ten Rookie Mistakes in PHP. Digging for material (mostly on this blog) also lead me to old rants that hopefully entertained somebody.

Click through to the presentation for details and we might have video up at some point thanks to Jerad Hill - but for the impatient my Top 10 Rookie PHP Mistakes are:

Not learning PHP
Not paying attention to security
Mixing everything up
Caring about micro-benchmarking
Using a template engine
Not using a template engine
"reusing" code
Not reusing code
Using a framework
Not using a framework
And as a bonus: not learning all the other technologies needed for web apps

More Hang Gliding

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:07:40 PST

I'm still Hang Gliding - my last lesson I repeated the 50' launch since it had been a while than hiked up to the 150' launch a couple of times. Everything looked good so I got to move up to the 300' launch and got three flights with a truck ride back to the top each time.

The main focus of this lesson was starting to be able to fly a landing approach. I'm not yet up to a standard aircraft Downwind-Base-Final approach but have the same basic idea: pick a spot I want to land, fly downwind away from it till I'm just the right distance, then turn back and glide to my chosen spot. Easy :)

Or not. The first time I waited waaaay to long - the only thing I'm happy about was when I'd made my turn to final my first thought was to fly best glide all the way down to the ground to get as far as possible but I quickly reconsidered and flew a little faster. Landing is about getting down safely, not hitting a particular spot right now and one of the things I'm working on is bringing enough speed down to the ground.

Of course my second landing I forgot this piece of wisdom and nearly landed on my wheels reaching for the spot. This time I turned too high, recognized it and made a (previously discussed with my instructor) course correction; flying back towards the 50' launch then turning back towards the spot in an effort to burn off some altitude. This was so successful I nearly landed in the inner circle I was aiming for - but stupidly pulled up my feet to eke out the last few yards of distance and barely got my feet back under me.

My third flight was the most exciting - the wind was really picking up and I actually had to wait for the cycle to die down in order to launch where normally I'm waiting for the breeze to pick up. I should have power launched, keeping the nose down a touch to increase my speed before flying but my takeoff was ok - this was my first ever "straps tight" takeoff where the glider was flying even before my takeoff run. Once in the air I felt great and thought I'd made a good call on my turn onto final. Of course I now had a headwind of ~10mph on the ground so I came up far short again. The landing was funny too. I decided as I came in that I wouldn't flare in all the wind and would just run it out which worked fine - but it was weird again to be landed (my feet are on the ground and no forwards movement) but the glider is still flying.

Landing is still what I'm thinking about the most and the skill I most want to acquire is the ability to round out at 2' high instead of swooping all the way down to ground level. All my flights for the day were good ones despite new conditions (wind!), new launches, 180 degree turns. It all was fun. I can't wait for the next time!

Lenten Reflections

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 23:44:28 PST

Well, that was an ... interesting season of Lent. My Church life has changed more dramatically than I would have thought possible at the start of the season. Things started out innocently enough - Fat Tuesday at my house means Taco Truck Tacos and drinks all around!

Jarritos!

Lent turned out to be a season of sadness in general. After seven years at BCF my family has left. The time was not wasted - we've been blessed by much fellowship and friendship - but I can't help feeling a sense of sadness and failure at our departure. I'll have more later to say about my reasons for going and what I hope to do next but for now I am still processing it all myself.

Not all has been sadness - we had a lovely Sunday playing hooky with friends and talking about the future.

"We're Walking!"

Claire

After the long Lenten season Easter was a reminder that God is a God of life from Death. We remember the death, but we celebrate the victory of resurrection life.

Communion

In fact I would go so far as to say that Easter has left me hopeful. I've spent some time looking back, thinking about events and decisions, what I could have done differently or wished others had done. I thought about the last congregation I was a part of - leaving doesn't get any easier! And now I am immersed in change and though much of what I value most in my life - life in the Body of Christ - is uncertain going forwards I believe and trust that He has something good in store for me and my family in the year to come. In the season of Easter I am grateful to be reminded of the presence of my resurrected savior and of the power of the one who raised Him from the Dead.

Christ is Risen!
He is risen indeed!

PyCon 2012

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:52:21 PST

I'm at PyCon 2012 having way too much fun...

I got a new job

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:30:47 PST

For the last year I've been doing contract work teaching for Marakana.com in San Francisco. Now we've made it full-time - and my new job title is Expert. Click through to my other site to read That's me, Python Expert for all the details...

Learning to Fly

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:04:00 PST

All my life that I can remember I've wanted to fly. When I was very young (maybe 6?) one of my cousins who is an aircraft instructor gave me a plane ride for my birthday, instantly becoming the coolest cousin ever!

I can't remember when I first learned about hang gliding - I do remember watching Hang Gliders at a very young age when my family visited Fort Funston in San Francisco. I can still remember my feeling of awe at the magical way the colorful wings rose, seemingly effortlessly, into the skies to surf the invisible waves of the air. And ever since gliding flight has enchanted me. I've spent happy hours watching sea gulls ridge soar around the rocky point out at Pigeon Point Light House - tiny movements and adjustments controlling their flight, stopping and nearly hovering then wheeling and diving downwind... Somehow flight just seemed wondrous, magical, much more fascinating than the mundane world where my feet were firmly planted.

During my early teenage years a friend of mine found an ancient rogallo style hang-glider in his family's newly rented barn and offered it to me, knowing my fascination. I might still be a little bitter that despite all my pleading my mom said "Absolutely not!"

When I was in my early twenties and planning on getting married I took one hang gliding lesson and made it out to the training hill. But money was tight and I eventually put my dreams of flying through the air to one side and opted for the somewhat more practical but still exciting motorcycle.

And here I am. I'm in my thirties. I have three children - and I don't even have a motorcycle anymore. But I can (maybe) afford to take a flying lesson or two and my job actually has a somewhat malleable schedule that means I might be able to take enough time to go flying occasionally. Can I still pursue my dream at this late date? It turns out that I can!

Eric Hinrichs teaches for Bay Area Hang Gliding and I've been taking lessons from him for the last few months. Or more accurately - I took a couple before December and a couple in the last month. As a result I've gotten to know the path down the training hill pretty well. I started out with a huge training glider that flies incredibly slowly - the Wills Wing Condor 330 - and Eric had me run on flat ground learning how to hold the glider, feel it rising off my shoulders, and come back to a stop supporting it. I slowly started working up the hill - getting my feet off the ground a little bit on my first lesson and gradually moving higher to make the flights slightly longer. The first few lessons are all about take offs and landing - controlling the angle of attack so that the wing flies when you take off and learning to feel ground effect, find trim speed and slowly push out to slow the glider upon landing.

My fourth lesson with Eric was Friday and I'm still flying high - I moved up a glider to the smaller Condor 225. Losing 105 square feet of sail meant things sped up and it took me a couple of tries to confidently power down the hill on launch and a couple more flights to be able to feel the right time to flare on landing. But by the end of the day my launches were strong, my flares were getting crisper, and I flew straight flights at a couple of different speeds to complete the tasks for my H1 novice rating. One multiple choice test later - I'm the proud holder of a temporary novice card and looking forwards to flying off the 300' launch on my way to an H2 license.

Eric was kind enough to strap a go-pro camera to my glider and post the footage. Yes - that's me skidding in on my knees the second time - but keep watching. By the end of the day landing smoothly on my feet with a crisp flare made me feel a mile high.

Driving home I thought to myself - In some ways I feel satisfied right now. I've accomplished a lifelong dream of mine - my feet have left the ground and I've felt, for 20 seconds at a time, the joy of pure flight. In some ways though I feel hungrier than ever. Those accomplished soarers - the hawks and vultures that spiral up in the thermals that rise around our training hill had better watch out - one day soon I'll be with with them climbing up into the blue skies.

Point and shoot camera's aren't

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:00:40 PST

I just bought a new camera and am so happy with it I'm wondering what took me so long to upgrade.

I've had a succession of point-and-shoot cameras since in the last ten years - but I've noticed for the last couple years that I don't take many pictures. And I don't take many pictures because all my pictures seem to look horrible. It's true that I can take good looking picture with my 6 megapixel point-and-shoot: of brightly lit non-moving scenes. But birthday pictures of small children running around in poorly lit rooms? Impossible - either too dark or too blurry or completely washed out by the direct and close flash.

Enter the DSLR. I do have a rudimentary understanding of aperture, shutter speed and ISO and understand that to get the most from my camera I'll have to learn more - but even on fully automatic I'm amazed by the superior light and detail. Compare two successive photos taken on full automatic of a room lit by a window - one from my A570 and one from my new Rebel T2i:

Do I have to say which came from the point-n-shoot and which came from the DSLR?

I'm looking forwards to enjoying taking photos again...

Good Eats Tex-Mex Style

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:11:31 PST

Everybody who knows me knows I like to cook. Learning to cook decent Asian food has been my obsession for the last couple of years but I've also really enjoyed the Tex-Mex stylings of Lisa Fain at Homesick Texan. I've made a enough of her recipes to trust her recommendation and added her newly published cookbook to my Amazon Wish List before Christmas.

Last week I got a chance to use my new cookbook and made four recipes when we had company over for dinner. I think all four are unique to the book - I hadn't seen them cross the blog at any rate. I had 3 winners and one recipe I may have to retry. Not too bad for the first time.

The "Salsa Fuego" recipe was the least successful attempt - I think I got too much adobo on the chipotle pepper it called for and the salsa was really smoky - too dark to be edible to my palette and I didn't serve it. Waste not however - I plan on using the salsa (with some citrus and olive oil additions) as marinade for a tri-tip next week. If you want a roasted tomato flavored salsa I highly recommend my go-to salsa recipe instead - a knockoff of Papalote's Salsa that features roasted pumpkin seeds. I'll probably give Salsa Fuego another try.

On the other hand the Habanero Carrot Salsa was awesome! Carrots gave a sweet flavor (and great color), the habanero adds spicy/fruity notes, and it's thinned with chicken stock which definitely adds to the meatiness of the taste and texture. This was easy to make and universally praised. Don't be scared off by the habanero - this was only low/medium in heat.

I also made the Red Rice recipe from the book and this was excellent if a touch too spicy for my kids. Those canned chipotle-in-adobo peppers pack a punch! Next time I make it I'll probably throw in some diced carrots and a handful of peas...

Finally the main course was Gas Station Style Pork Tacos. This consisted of cubed pork marinated for a 6 hours in a fantastic sauce - then fried in a skillet over high heat and wrapped in freshly fried corn tortillas. The secret to enjoying this recipe is to feature the pork - I made tacos with just a scoop of pork, a spritz of lime and a pinch of cilantro. Excellent flavor - I'll be making these again.

I've still got all sorts of interesting recipes to make from the book and am feeling pleased already after making 4 first-time recipes for company without disaster. If you're interested in some quality Tex-Mex downhome cooking check out the Homesick Texan.

Announcing the Modesto Scripting Language Meetup

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:41:10 PST

Over on my professional blog I announced the new Modesto Scripting Language Meetup. It doesn't seem right to have to drive 60 miles to find a developer oriented meetup - so I started one myself! See all the details on the Modesto Scripting Languages meetup page and come join us for our first meetup!

I Can't Believe This Worked

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:17:15 PST

My Brother HL 2040 printer stopped loading paper from the tray. I regard printers with the disdain non-techies regard computers in general: mercurial, tempestuous creatures without rhyme or reason. So I did a little googling but without much hope, was amused to discover instructions for covering a tiny rubber pad with scotch tape on a pc repair forum and was amazed to discover it works!

So - if your Brother 2040 makes annoying clicking sounds and refuses to feed paper from the tray check out this helpful post at fixya (be sure to look at the linked pictures). I still can't believe it worked...

Side Projects

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:49:48 PST

I hadn't done a satisfying side project in a long time. The last one that springs to mind was some simple PyGame typing games I made for my daughter when she wanted to play a computer game but couldn't get the hang of a mouse.

She's a little older now and is in first grade. We have a great home-school/tutoring co-op setup going and really only have to worry about the curriculum for first grade social studies. Recently my wife asked me to put together some worksheets for the "Symbols, Icons, and traditions of the US" portion of the California State Standards for 1st grade social studies.

True to my usual form I took the opportunity to play with software - I wrote a little script that takes directories of YAML files and runs them through some Jinja2 templates to produce a little website. You can see the resulting educational website and check out the code on github.

I took the opportunity to play with some html5 and css3 and didn't even try to shoehorn support in for IE - Chrome and Firefox both support the <audio> element, CSS gradients, CSS transitions and rotations, etc so the site looks quite spiffy in modern browsers but results may vary dramatically in older and less standards compliant browsers.

James and Real Faith

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:27:10 PST

I preached last Sunday. Right now the lay brothers who share in the preaching duties are going through the Book of James. We just finished Galatians - I guess we're striving to be fair and balanced!

Anyways - anyone interested can listen to my take on James on Sermoncloud. In studying for the sermon I discovered D. Edmond Hiebert who was a long time instructor at Mennonite Brethren Seminary down at Fresno Pacific University. Hiebert wrote a lot of commentaries and has an interesting thesis about the book of James - if you're interested his essay "The Unifying Theme of the Epistle of James" is available online and is worth a read.

Counterfeit Gospels (Chapter 2 Response)

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:39:36 PST

Comments regarding Mike Wells

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:23:12 PST

Counterfeit Gospels Chapter 2 - The Therapeutic Gospel

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 23:03:46 PST

My wife and I are co-blogging our way through Trevin Wax's Counterfeit Gospels. See the Related Articles links at the bottom for the rest of the articles in the series.

Chapter 2 begins an examination of some of the gospels that are counterfeits of the real thing. Grouped together under the title "The Therapeutic Gospel" these variants emphasize different aspects but focus on our human need for happiness in a way that is at odds with the Biblical message about who we are.

Happy Meal Gospel

First up is the Happy Meal gospel. Wax talks about his son as toddler wanting to go to McDonalds but I think its really just the marketing chutzpah of the name of the menu item that makes him use it. I confess I hadn't ever really thought about it - a meal that promises Happiness!

The Happy Meal gospel occurs when we make felt human happiness our ultimate value and goal. Wax sees as typical of this gospel a scene in the evangelical-friendly movie A Walk to Remember where the heroine, arguing with her pastor-father trumps his arguments from scripture with "I think God wants me to be happy."

Fill 'er up Gospel

The Fill 'er up gospel is another variant of the therapeutic gospel that uses more explicitly therapeutic language. Here happiness is still the goal but the means is increased self-esteem. For the fill-er-up Gospel humans just need to abandon their poor self image and recognize their true worth in order to be happy - like a car low on gas a simple addition of the fuel of self-esteem promises to restore functioning.

Pastors in this version of the Gospel are there to encourage and motivate. Wax identifies typical motifs like "the real problem is deep down we feel we're not good enough to approach a holy God" or more straightforwardly motivational messages like "there is a hero within you waiting to be awakened" as markers of the Fill 'er up gospel message. It's all about YOU! And with a little help YOU can be who YOU were meant to be!

Paid Programming Gospel

The Paid Programming Gospel is the result of using salesmanship to pitch the gospel based on the benefits it brings. "Come to Jesus and your life will get better". This is true - but it depends on how "better" is defined and too often "better" is defined as happier, more prosperous and the Christian life is sold on the basis of the blessings it will surely bring to your life.

God as Vending Machine

Finally and most vulgarly is the God as Vending Machine approach. The various flavors of the prosperity gospel fit here - God, it teaches, is obligated to bless you and give you whatever you desire. You pay the fee of faith or obedience and God will give you your selection from His array of goodies.

Wax rightfully points out that there are more subtle versions of this heresy - most people can spot the flaws in Kenneth Copeland's theology of blessings but what about promising that God always honors our obedience with blessing? Some Churches offer money-back guarantees for their giving - tithe, they argue, and God will surely bless your finances. More subtly - how many times have you heard the plea to serve God by going on a mission trip, adopting an orphan, giving to support charitable work with the promise that God responds to our obedience with blessings?

Why they are tempting

The middle section of the chapter was on spotting the counterfeits, identifying the things they get right but also the results they produce in the lives of believers. Finally Wax talks about combating these counterfeit Gospels in our own lives.

Part of why they are appealing or not even always obviously wrong is that the counterfeits contain truths - maybe even truths we sometimes do not emphasize enough! Humans certainly have worth - but we have worth because God loves us, God does not love us because of our intrinsic worth. God is indeed faithful to keep his promises and He does bless His children and many blessings are promised to those who are faithful.

Those promises and blessings are not contracts, however, they are indicative of the nature of God and they are accompanied by stories and admonitions to trust in God who acts in ways we cannot understand. God relates to us as his children - always acting for our good but not always in ways that are comprehensible to us.

If we see God as a vending machine we will end up in a crisis of faith when tragedy or suffering befalls us. Haven't we been faithful enough? Surely God isn't breaking His word?

Therapeutic language minimizes sin - and leaves us outside of Scriptural language and provision of grace and repentance.

If the blessings become the point we miss the point and can't see Jesus because we're so busy focusing on our family, our business, our prosperity.

To combat these tendencies Wax proposes that we make sure we are focused on God. You are not the center of the Story - the Story is about Jesus. Your desires and hopes and dreams are not insignificant to God - but the aren't the point and may not be the best for you anyways! We most not focus on ourselves but instead should focus on God.

When we do this we can find our joy in God and our worth and identity in the Gospel. Are you looking for the blessings? Are you in it for the rewards? If we can find satisfaction in God alone, if we can place our sense of worth in our identity in Christ, we are nearer to comprehending the Gospel and less likely to fall prey to the counterfeits around us.

My Thoughts

I have to admit I don't have a lot of first hand experience with the Counterfeits Trevin Wax identifies. Consequently none of the portraits he paints really feels that familiar to me. That isn't to say that they don't exist - I have bumped into the "name-it-and-claim-it" variety of Christianity that reduces God to the great vending machine in the sky - but in general my own Christian experience has been mostly free of these counterfeits.

I suspect that the "Happy Meal" gospel is the most subtle counterfeit so far because its premise is often unstated. Baldly stating "the Good News is that God wants you to be happy" is clearly ridiculous. But much of evangelical teaching and preaching does seem to be oriented around becoming satisfied, fulfilled, contented, enriched, etc etc. All synonyms in some way for happiness - and an imbalance that can lead to a Happy Meal expectation from the Gospel without ever coming right out and stating it.

I also appreciated the discussion of the Fill-er-up gospel. The focus on "positivity" in Evangelical circles has long irritated me - although it may just be revealing of my personality that the local Christian radio station's motto "Positive and Encouraging" has always irritated me and any hint of "Motivational Speaker" style communication from the pulpit makes me cringe.

I've also really noticed the trend of therapeutic language replacing the language of Scripture in some circles lately. The "Celebrate Recovery" movement seems to do this to some degree and it produces Christians who prefer therapeutic concepts and attitudes to Scriptural ones - the language of "sin" is harsh and condemning while "addiction" is an extrinsic human flaw we're not personally culpable for. "Confession" becomes therapeutic confession where everyone "shares" and is "honest" with one another - but no one would dare to challenge anyone else because that would create an unsafe atmosphere. And so forth - until the language that Scripture itself uses becomes unfamiliar and harsh to our therapeutically conditioned ears. This is tragic.

This is not to say there is no place for therapy or therapeutic language - it is just that for Christians it should not take the place of the Church and therapeutic language should not drive out the language Scripture uses.

Most convicting to me personally was the section on combating these counterfeits. Do I take Joy in the presence of God? Do I find my fulfillment and identity in Him? This sounded to me like John Piper's Christian Hedonism - "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." This is a notion I agree with, but struggle to practice. If our Gospel does not lead us into companionship with God, however, if it it does not call us enjoy and glorify Him than we certainly gone wrong somewhere.

Counterfeit Gospels (Chapter 1 Response)

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:48:22 PST

My wife and I are co-blogging our way through Trevin Wax's Counterfeit Gospels. See an introduction to our series and Stephanie's recap of Chapter 1 here.

I'm happy to have a co-blogger and a goal to keep things moving on the old blog. Lately I have taught classes, preached, and written reams of personal correspondence - there's a lot going on but not much has made it to my blog. I've also kept up, more or less, with my reading but haven't blogged about any of the many excellent books I've read lately.

It's nice to change all that. Like Stephanie I already had a predisposition to like Trevin Wax's Counterfeit Gospels. I've known for a long time that something is lacking in Evangelical presentations of the Gospel. And despite the renewed focus on the Gospel in evangelical circles lately which Wax alludes to, I still see something missing in many presentations of the Gospel.

For example in 2009 I highlighted a brief clip of Matt Chandler (who wrote the foreword to Counterfeit Gospels) preaching from I Timothy at the Desiring God conference. His focus here is on making the Gospel the center of all teaching and I said:

Matt Chandler believes in preaching the Gospel to Christians - but the Gospel is not limited to "believe in Jesus and you won't go to hell when you die"!

I've also been generally encouraged by reading folks like Scot McKnight to see the Gospel as bigger, more expansive than the formulations I heard around me and have blogged about that in this space from time to time. Given this background I really appreciated Wax's metaphor of a three-legged stool as a symbol for the presentation of the Gospel. Remove any leg - and the stool topples. He rightly drew attention to the dangers of the counterfeit - it resembles the real enough to be true, but may not be nourishing enough to sustain us.

For Wax the three legs of the Gospel stool are the Gospel Story, the Gospel Announcement, and the Gospel Community. I've never heard exactly these categories attached to defining the Gospel before so I'm looking forwards to examining them in-depth.

Intuitively I appreciate his divisions: the way the legs reinforce one another makes sense to me. From my perspective the Evangelical wing of the Church focuses on the Gospel Announcement but by discarding the as inessential the Gospel Community and much of the Gospel Story they get the announcement wrong too. "Jesus died so you can go to heaven when you die" doesn't bear much resemblance to the actual proclamation Jesus made.

And similarly more liberal wings of Protestantism focus more on the Gospel Community and perhaps the Gospel Story as well. But by discarding the Gospel Announcement that salvation comes to sinful man through Jesus alone they end up misunderstanding much of the Gospel Story and the resulting Community only bears some of the marks that should typify the Body.

So what does Wax consider to be the Gospel Story? Chapter 1 focused on the Gospel Story and, as Stephanie discussed, defined the Gospel story within the Creation/Fall/Redemption/Restoration framework. I've heard of this framework before from people like Tim Keller but haven't spent a lot of time considering if it is a fruitful one for understanding Scripture. It does have some obvious fruits - I'm in agreement with Stephanie that much of popular Christian thought is confused about the role of the Old Testament and this framework solidly unites both Testaments into a single story.

Additionally I always have an eye towards the cosmic end of the salvation story - my main complaint about understandings of the Gospel that only tell a sin/salvation story is that they minimize the cosmic scope both of sin and of the nature of salvation. Framing Jesus in the story of God's good work both past and future properly refocuses us away from a purely individualistic approach. As Wax points out this is what the Scriptural authors do whether it is the "according to Scriptures" Paul or the Isaiahic refrains of Luke. Using the Creation/Fall/Redemption/Restoration framework helps us see the cosmic scope of God's work and frees us from a me-centered approach to the Gospel.

Counterfeit Gospels (Chapter 1)

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:10:37 PST

Gunwalker is a conspiracy

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:41:47 PST

Saw a link tonight from somebody who agrees that the ATF/Gunwalker scandal smells like a deliberate op. I had earlier posted a link to to a story about the State Dept selling military weapons to the Zetas and speculated that when two different Departments of USGOV are moving weapons across the border it smells like a plan, not a foul-up to me. I know, I know, never explain with malice when stupidity would do and all that...

But after seeing the stories about the Feds cutting deals with the Sinaloa Cartel I begin to wonder if all the news is related. Well, apparently I'm not the only one thinking these thoughts.

PDB Howto

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:48:20 PST

Thanks to the good folks at Marakana for whom I am doing some teaching I have some videos posted. See Max's awesome video editing skills render my pdb howto relatively stumble free!

More than 4Gb RAM on Ubuntu 32 bit

Fri, 20 May 2011 18:29:40 PST

I recently grabbed some more RAM since my desktop PC had only 3Gb. I'm running the most recent LTS release by Ubuntu, Lucid Lynx 10.04.

I removed a 1 Gig stick and added two 2 Gig sticks I bought from Newegg. My bootup POST showed 6 gigs recognized but when I got back into Ubuntu top and `cat /proc/meminfo` agreed that I had less than 4 gigs.

Of course I immediately figured out that this was because of the 4 gig limitation on addressing memory common to 32bit operating systems. I wasn't up for updating to 64bit Ubuntu over my lunch break so I googled to see if there were any other options and Ubuntu's own documentation pointed me in the direction of Physical Address Extension - a different kernel that would allow addressing more than 4 gigs of memory. There are various limitation so I may yet go x64 but this sounded like something I could still get done on my lunch break. A quick

sudo apt-get install linux-generic-pae

and a reboot and I had a new kernel that recognized all 6 gigs of my RAM. Of course... now my Nvidia drivers didn't work. I didn't discover till later that there's an easier way to solve this (see this thread) but what I ended up doing was manually downloading the drivers from Nvidia and recompiling them (see this post for instructions on compiling the Nvidia drivers). For future reference it apparently works to remove the linux-headers-generic package and install linux-headers-generic-pae, than use System -> Administration -> Hardware drivers to reinstall the Nvidia packages. Either way - it is possible to end up with more than 4 Gigs of RAM on a working 32bit Ubuntu

Does Jesus save us from God?

Tue, 03 May 2011 06:00:00 PST

Who is in Charge?

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:13:54 PST

Don't worry about Brian Wilson - worry about Charlie Sheen!

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 06:00:00 PST

Recently Brian Wilson visited Charlie Sheen. This raised concern among Giants fans due to Sheen's history of drug use and erratic behaviour - see this story in the Chronicle for example.

Since Wilson's visit Sheen has made headlines with bizarre pronouncements like:

I am on a drug, it's called 'Charlie Sheen'. It's not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.

and:

I'm tired of pretending like I'm not special. I'm tired of pretending like I'm not bitching, a total fricking rock star from Mars, and people can't figure me out, they can't process me. I don't expect them to. You can't process me with a normal brain
www.guardian.co.uk

In retrospect it's obvious we were worried about the wrong guy! Brian must have passed on his sea-captain's hat(s) of +6 media baiting to Sheen. Alas, not all mortals can wield such weapons in safety!