Everything That's On My Mind

Monday, February 20, 2006

Sometimes, only the words of Charlie Brown will do.

Argh!!!

I love metro Detroit. I've lived in the city itself and I've lived in the suburbs. I think Detroit is a great place, despite all the decay and neglect in the city itself. I love to go downtown for events like the Jazz Festival, Winter Blast, the Auto Show, and of course the occasional ballgame. My wife and I went to Cleveland recently and I was blown away by the positive changes in that city. I still believe that kind of revival can happen in Detroit.

That's why it is SO frustrating to see all the bickering and self-serving posturing by the political leaders of our region. The latest sad example is the Detroit Zoo fiasco. How incredibly stupid to use this wonderful institution as a political poker chip. Now, I'm not trying to assign blame on anyone. I don't need to, there's plenty to go around. Shame on everyone involved.

One step forward, two steps back...argh!!!

Politics

Monday, February 20, 2006 - 03:09 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Thursday, February 16, 2006

Stewardship and social justice

This may be my first little “dry spell” as a blogger. I just haven’t been inspired to write anything for a few days. Of course, that word “inspired” carries a bit of baggage for conservative evangelical Christians, so maybe I should find another term. Let’s just say my muse has been silent. Oh wait, that’s pagan Greek mythology…aarrgh.

My last entry about the ECI got me thinking about global issues that I put on the back burner a few years ago. Conservative evangelical Christianity has tended to shy away from social justice and economic issues, not wanting to be accused of promoting a “liberal social gospel”. In some ways, it’s like how a friend of mine describes his Baptist upbringing...no one wanted to talk about the Holy Spirit for fear of being accused of being a closet Pentecostal. (Oh, the horror!!!) I must admit, I’ve probably been caught in the same “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” trap, whether it’s because I’m a conservative evangelical Christian, or simply because I’m a dumb American who hasn’t really experienced much of the rest of the world.

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve begun to revisit social issues lately. There has been a lot of “buzz” on these kinds of issues lately, whether it is Rick Warren’s work in Rwanda, Bono’s work with DATA, or the SAY Detroit campaign surrounding the Super Bowl. My friend Keith and I have been trading emails on such subjects lately, too.

(Quick aside: It’s been interesting reading Mark Robert’s comments on Bono’s sermon at the National Prayer Breakfast, since he was actually present at the breakfast. Check it out.)

It seems to me the primary issues in most world conflicts revolve around economics, when you get right down to it. Poverty is a desperate state, and desperate people do desperate things. If we want less conflict in the world, we need to focus more on the issue of poverty in addition to (not instead of) the Gospel of Christ. The question is, what can I do about worldwide poverty? Well, the first thing I can do is make sure I support those closest to me. For example, I’ve already blogged about the SAY Detroit campaign. The reality is, however, that the poorest in the USA are rich in comparison to much of the world. What can I do for the rest of the world?

There are many “easy” answers like sponsoring a World Vision child, but what about the old saw about teaching a man to fish? Wouldn’t it be better to be involved in helping people make a good living for themselves? A few years back the “Fair Trade” movement caught my attention, but I didn’t do anything about it at the time. I’m thinking about it again. The basic idea is, give a little more thought to the source of the items we buy and maybe intentionally spend a little more on an item that has been made by someone working realistic hours at a fair wage. We’ve heard the stories of sweat-shops and child labor problems in other countries, yet we still go to Wal-Mart to get the cheap clothing.

It’s hard for me, having been raised to be frugal, to intentionally spend more than I need to but perhaps I need to think less selfishly about such things. Perhaps good stewardship of God’s blessings means more than just getting the best deal when I go to the store. Can I make some different spending decisions and make a small contribution to the economic well being of others? Bono and his wife have started a new clothing company called Edun with these principles in mind, although they seem to be targeting consumers with much more disposable income than I have. I’m not about to go out and spend $100+ on a pair of jeans, but I’m at least going to try to start thinking about how my spending decisions affect others.

Politics

Thursday, February 16, 2006 - 03:08 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Feelin' hot, hot, hot?

I'm not a climatologist. I don't even play one on TV. In fact, I've never been very interested in environmental science at all. I am, however, very interested in the new Evangelical Climate Initiative. Not because I agree or disagree with it, but because it (hopefully) is the beginning of real political change within the evangelical community.

I have always been fairly conservative politically. I went through my Limbaugh phase. I've moderated a lot since then, but I still generally tend to tip to the conservative side of politics. That being said, I'm not a big fan of the way the evangelical community has hitched its wagon so tightly to the Republican party. I don't think it's healthy for either side. I certainly don't agree with the idea that a "good Christian" has to be a Republican...or a Democrat for that matter. The ECI is the first time I've noticed high-profile evangelical leaders break from the Republican party line. Even if they're wrong, I'm glad they had the courage to challenge the status quo. I think it's best for Christians to take stands on specific issues, rather than blindly support one political party.

So you may be wondering...what do I think about global warming? My answer is, I don't know. I'm too ignorant on the issue to allow anyone to care about what I think about it. Mankind is the caretaker of this world God created, however, so I think Christians should be more engaged in environmental issues than they are. There's no reason we shouldn't take better care of this planet, whether we're warming it or not.

Politics

Wednesday, February 08, 2006 - 03:07 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Monday, February 06, 2006

OK, so I'm not THAT big of a geek

OK, I admit it. I'm a techno-geek. I own one of the original PalmPilot PDAs. I still have it in a drawer somewhere…cracked screen and all. Technology is all over my life. Every now and then, however, I'm uncharacteristically slow in adopting a new technology. I've been hearing the term RSS for years, but never really took the time to understand the technology. Now that I do, I wonder why it took me so long. RSS (and ATOM) feeds are great time-management tools if you know how to use them.

I'm a voracious reader, particularly when it comes to news items and magazine articles on topics that interest me. Long ago, I learned about the benefits of pre-reading and skimming. Pre-reading is a technique for quickly determining the topic and general content of an article to determine if it is worth spending time reading it in depth. Some people call this skimming but in my opinion skimming is a different skill, somewhere between pre-reading and normal reading. Both pre-reading and skimming are important time-management techniques. If you read as much as I do, you need learn them.

With the advent of the Internet, we have access (and most of it free) to more information sources than anyone could have imagined just a couple decades ago. For someone like me, this can create a time-management nightmare. There are easily 50+ web sites that I visit on a regular basis, from The Detroit News to Christianity Today to Rotten Tomatoes, not to mention all the other bloggers I read. That’s where RSS comes in. Most online publications (including bloggers like me) now offer an RSS feed, which provides the title and the first few paragraphs of the content. With a good RSS reader/aggregator, you can be notified when a new article is posted and quickly determine if it’s worth reading or not. This can save you lots of surfing time.

So I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’m just now getting up to speed on this technology, but better late than never, right? If you’re an information-aholic like me, you need to check out this technology. I haven’t actually calculated how much time I’m saving, but I’m confident it’s significant. Here are a few of the RSS aggregators I’ve tried, with some comments. Since I’m a cheapskate, these are all free.

My Yahoo lets you add RSS feeds to your home page but you only get article titles, so I didn’t find it all that helpful.
The Firefox browser has some RSS support (called Live Bookmarks) built-in, but it’s not very feature-rich. Habari Xenu is a plug-in for Firefox that is much superior to the built-in support.
There are stand-alone Windows applications like Feed Explorer and Sharp Reader. They’re nice, but I prefer something that’s integrated into software I already use regularly.
Right now, I’m using intraVnews (thanks for the tip, Bob), which is a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook. Since Outlook is always running on my PC, this has been the most convenient aggregator I’ve tried. Until I find something better, I think I’m sticking with this one.

If you’re a patient soul, Internet Explorer 7 and Outlook 12 are supposed to have built-in RSS support, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Besides, why wait? You could be saving valuable time right now.

P.S. In case you haven’t noticed, the link for my RSS feed is on the right, below the calendar.

Technology

Monday, February 06, 2006 - 03:04 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Thursday, February 02, 2006

Super All Year

Whether he knows it or not, Mitch Albom is doing God's work. If you haven't read his recent articles in the Free Press, check them out. I love football as much as anyone, but Mitch is right. It just seems so wrong that all these decadent parties crammed with millionaires are going on in downtown Detroit this weekend when so many homeless are crammed into shelters just a few miles away.

I hope having the Super Bowl here is a great boost for the city of Detroit, but I pray it also raises awareness and lots of money for the folks who care for the homeless. Mitch has started the "Super All Year" campaign to raise funds for the Detroit Rescue Mission. You can donate online here.

Community | Current Events

Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 03:04 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Good news from Narnia

Prince Caspian Given Go-Ahead

Movies

Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 03:03 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Thursday, January 26, 2006

Justice, mercy, and humility

I'm starting this blog entry without knowing exactly what I'm going to say. It's going to be sort of stream of consciousness blogging. The impetus of this entry it the news of the day regarding the victory of Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections. It's a troubling event for the state of Israel and for world peace in general. I'm troubled because I don't know how this development will affect the peace process, but I can't imagine how it could be a positive change.

The Israeli/Palestinian situation has always created great conflict in my mind. I'm not one of those "support Israel no matter what" Christians. Some American Christians seem to forget that Israel has rejected their Messiah, and that many Palestinians are fellow believers in Christ that are being oppressed and threatened. In their desire to see biblical prophecy fulfilled within their own narrow interpretation, they seem to be willing to sacrifice justice and mercy for an entire group of people. I cannot see how Christ would be pleased with such an attitude. That being said, it is also true that Hamas and organizations like it are a direct threat to the peace and safety of the Israeli people. Bombs and bullets are flying in both directions, and innocent people on both sides are suffering and dying.

Both sides in this conflict have done wrong, and continue to do wrong. We can debate all day long which side is "more right" but in the end that doesn't accomplish anything. The reality of the situation is that both sides deserve to live in a land where they can live in relative peace and safety and have a voice in how they are governed. I don't see how the election of Hamas is going to improve the chances of this happening. Hamas is still an organization at war with Israel and committed to its destruction. They are not likely to repent that position any time soon. Their rise to power will not encourage Israel to continue the peace process, they will likely refuse to negotiate with them altogether. Given the history of Hamas, I can't say that I would blame them.

I belive that it is the responsibility of every Christian to pray for and support peace in the Holy Land, for both Israelis AND Palestinians. No matter what view of end-times prophecy you take, you must admit that God is sovereign and His will is accomplished on earth by His power and in His timing. We do not know how or when He is going to fulfill what He has promised. Trying to push the peace process one direction or another is not going to bring about God's timing any sooner, and may actually be working contrary to His plan. We are called to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before our God. I think many American Evangelical Christians (including myself) need to meditate on this verse and apply it to their politics and attitudes toward world events.

Politics | Current Events

Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 02:57 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Monday, January 23, 2006

Another reason why Supreme Court nominees matter

When most evangelical Christians think about the Supreme Court only one word comes to mind: abortion. Most probably don't even know what eminent domain means. This article is enlightening...and frightening. Especially since our church sits on prime strip mall real estate.

Politics

Monday, January 23, 2006 - 02:52 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Sunday, January 22, 2006

Katrina's continuing aftermath

Reading this article reminded me once again that Hurricane Katrina hasn't stopped affecting people and churches. It also reminded me of one of the benefits of a fellowship of churches like the A/G. Lately, many churches have left their demoninational structures or have been started outside denominational structures. While in some ways it's attractive to be unencumbered by bureaucracy, there are definitely benefits to the structure provided by a fellowship of churches working together. Especially in times of crisis, it's good to have a safety net of other churches caring for you.

That being said, I'm sure there are many churches like the one mentioned in the article above that don't have those support structures and they still need help rebuilding. I did some Googling and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any central place where support for non-denominational churches is being coordinated. If I find one later, I'll post it. In the meantime, you can contribute to the A/G Disaster Relief Fund for rebuilding A/G churches.

Current Events

Sunday, January 22, 2006 - 02:52 PM Eastern Standard Time

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