Careful Thought

If he hadn’t died, Mark Twain would have been 170 today. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

As you listen to the discussions about the secularization of Christmas, it’s interesting to pay attention to the arguments used by the foes of Christmas. Usually when a group seeks to “de-Christ” Christmas it’s nominally because they don’t want non-Christians to be offended by an overtly Christ-centered message. So it was interesting to read about a British Councilman from Wolverhampton who stood up to denounce that argument.

From New Kerala (by way of the FoxNews Tongue-Tied column):

Punjabi Christian restores Christmas to British town
By Prasun Sonwalkar, London: At a time when Britain’s multiculturalism is fast turning into often misplaced political correctness, a Punjabi Christian councillor in the west Midlands town of Wolverhampton has been credited with bringing Christmas back to the country.For years, in keeping with the multicultural ethos, the town would herald Christmas with the politically correct slogan of ‘Welcome’ in the display of lights - this was spelt in several languages, including Punjabi. Wolverhampton has a significant population of Punjab origin people.

But Elias Mattu, 46, a Punjabi Christian councillor, campaigned within the local council to include the word ‘Christmas’ in the public display in lights that is funded by the council.

Now thanks to his efforts, the public display of lights costing 150,000 pounds has been switched on with the words ‘Happy Christmas,’ rather than the bland and politically correct ‘Welcome’.

Mattu said: “Some officials seemed to think that the word Christmas might offend some minorities. But I pointed out that in India we have more than 500 religions and we have no problem getting on with minorities.

“I don’t know of a single minority in Britain which is offended by the mention of Christmas. I believe it was easier for me, as an Asian, to argue this case. I think all faiths should be accepted equally - but not at the expense of Christianity.

“Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus I’ve spoken to here all join in with it. It is patronising to suggest they’re offended. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and by removing the word Christmas from the lights I think it erodes Christian values.”

And now Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House, wants to get into the act by calling the Capitol Christmas tree a Christmas tree.

Now, I grew up on a farm and have done a lot of things that city kids never got to do, but one of the joys of farm life I never participated in was — you guessed it — cow tipping. Cow tipping is the stuff of legend, or at least the stuff of tall stories around the farm. Everybody seemed to know someone who had been ‘tipping, but no one would actually admit to having done it themselves.

Now it turns out that cow tipping is if not impossible, at least improbable. The idea is to sneak up on a hapless bovine in the middle of the night, give a hefty shove in a lateral direction, and over they go.

Some researchers with way too much time on their hands have analyzed the phenomenon and determined that the physics doesn’t add up.

From the [UK] Times Online :

Margo Lillie, a doctor of zoology at the University of British Columbia, and her student Tracy Boechler have conducted a study on the physics of cow-tipping.Ms Boechler, now a trainee forensics analyst for the Royal Canadian Mounted Corps, concluded in her initial report that a cow standing with its legs straight would require five people to exert the required force to bowl it over.

A cow of 1.45 metres in height pushed at an angle of 23.4 degrees relative to the ground would require 2,910 Newtons of force, equivalent to 4.43 people, she wrote.

Dr Lillie, Ms Boechler’s supervisor, revised the calculations so that two people could exert the required amount of force to tip a static cow, but only if it did not react.

“The static physics of the issue say . . . two people might be able to tip a cow,‿ she said. “But the cow would have to be tipped quickly — the cow’s centre of mass would have to be pushed over its hoof before the cow could react.‿

Newton’s second law of motion, force equals mass multiplied by acceleration, shows that the high acceleration necessary to tip the cow would require a higher force. “Biology also complicates the issue here because the faster the [human] muscles have to contract, the lower the force they can produce. But I suspect that even if a dynamic physics model suggests cow tipping is possible, the biology ultimately gets in the way: a cow is simply not a rigid, unresponding body.‿

Maybe I just haven’t checked for awhile, but the semi-definitive list of Christians who blog is back.

Tom at Soul Gardeners isn’t happy with modern – or postmodern, as the case may be - Christianity. He’s concerned that we have grown slack in our understanding of the Christian walk and sloppy in the way we describe it. I can’t say that I disagree much.

He particularly doesn’t like the phrase “accepting Jesus” to describe the salvation experience:

What does that mean? For most people it was a prayer they prayed to ensure their salvation i.e. not going to hell. After the prayer was said, the person goes back to his ‘real life’ having been assured of eternal life. Now that the person has accepted Jesus they basically ignore all that Jesus did and said. When the ‘here after’ kicks in he’ll give God his full attention; but now they’re just too busy.

I tend to agree. I can accept the fact some people will be damned for all time, but if I don’t act on that acceptance it’s a meaningless understanding. Likewise, if my “acceptance” of Christ as savior doesn’t produce outward evidence of a changed life, what good is it? As Tom says, Christ never said that we should accept Him, but instead he commanded us to follow Him . In fact, Christ went on to say that if we don’t take up our crosses to follow Him, we are not worthy of being called His.

Ouch.

In my own life I can see that I too often accept and too seldom follow.

Chad Wayner has a great piece on the audacity of Christians and the implication of daring to believe that you are made in the image of God ( Gen 1:26 ).

It sure seems that in our society, Christians are seen as the root of all that is evil. Chad notes Lynn White’s article The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis , saying that it is this very audacity that has propelled Christianity into “ its leading role as instigator of our current environmental crisis .”

I think it’s a bit of a stretch to claim that we have the lead role as instigators, but White’s argument almost makes sense from a secular perspective. After all, if we as Christians are focused on eternity, then we’re not going to care what happens to the planet, right?

I mean, 1 John is pretty specific when it says,

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” (1 John 2:15-17 NIV)

That just crawls with hate-the-planet-ism, doesn’t it?

The problem is that it doesn’t. The world, in this context, is the world system that sets itself up against God. And besides, even if the passage referred to the physical world, God never released us from the requirement to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Dominion implies that we act as caretakers or stewards. At this point, to paraphrase Three-Fingered Jack , the whole dang anti-environment opera falls apart.

We have probably been uncharitable to the rabid environmental crowd on the opposite grounds - that many environmentals don’t acknowledge a Creator God (or His Son), so all they can see is the planet because they have no hope of anything beyond.

I’m still trying to grasp full meaning of being made in the image of God, but being made in His image doesn’t give us license to lord it over others, even if we have been given eternity.

Hokule’a posts another great meme, courtesy of Fire Ant and others. It’s based on Kevin O’Keefe’s The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation’s Most Ordinary Citizen . According to the book, a majority of Americans:

My hope is not in men, but this was encouraging nonetheless:

Senate votes to allow prayer at military academies By M.E. SPRENGELMEYER
November 8, 2005The Senate voted 99-0 Wednesday to allow voluntary, non-denominational prayers at official events at the U.S. Air Force Academy and other service academies.

The amendment to a pending defense authorization bill was inspired by the recent controversy over religious tolerance at the academy’s campus in Colorado Springs, Colo., where complaints about alleged proselytizing by top officers prompted a Pentagon review and series of new restrictions.

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., complained at a recent academy Board of Visitors’ meeting that new, draft regulations could squelch religious expression.

I don’t know where the personalized Google pages get their Quote of the Day, but they seem to be uniformly pessimistic. Here’s their offering for today:

“We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet: and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us.
- Maurice Maeterlinck”

Well, gee, why don’t we just go open a vein and end it?

Hmmm, I know why. How about this instead?

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will live in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.Acts 2:25-27 (NIV)

I’ll take hope of eternal life over black despair any day.