waltondammerung

Where's Cheney?

I have seen neither hide nor hair of Dick Cheney for the last few, oh... months. Since I get most of my news from NPR and the Wall Street Journal, I guess that's not horribly suprising, but still, that leads me to make my bold prediction for this week's convention:

Bush will give Cheney the boot and announce Giuliani as his running mate, thereby almost ensuring his reelection this November. How long has this been in the works? Oh, maybe since they planned to have the Republican convention in New York City.

Bush and Giuliani Campaigning in New Mexico this past week.

Why the Swiss Army will conquer us all some day

Okay, so we all knew that one day we'd be able to buy a swiss army knife with a USB flash drive. Or at least we all secretly hoped we would be able to. How cool.

Abberknockity tunes but once.

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas Edison
Personally, I think overalls are kind of sexy. Does that give me an edge over everyone else?

I'm not dead yet! I... I think I might pull through...

Okay, so I've been such a bad blogger that all trace of any "recent" entries has been wiped from my site. Between vacation with family, going out of town on business, and running back to Ohio for a funeral, I've hardly seen my own home lately, let alone my blog. And no, I didn't really have reliable internet access available in most of those places. Of course, now that I'm finally home for awhile, my computer is in the shop, and Josh needs his for schoolwork, so I am left posting excuses for not blogging from my work computer. I'm just going to cut my losses for August, and everyone will be able to benefit from copious amounts of waltondammerung blog muck starting again in September. :)

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I'm reading Will Metzger's Tell the Truth. I'm only on the first chapter, and I'm already impressed. He hits the nail on the head when he describes some of the problems with the way we've been presenting Christ. I liked this passage in particular, from a section entitled "Whole Gospel/Shrunken Gospel":

"How dangerous a half-truth can be when presented as the whole truth! For instance, the truth that God is love is a wonderful part of the gospel. However, if the whole presentation of the gospel is built primarily on this truth, distortion develops. Sinners can relax with the thought of God's love for them and find an excuse to delay repentance. This biblical truth is distorted by non-Christians to mean 'Love is God.' Then a human definition of love (nice, tolerant, non-judgmental) is substituted, and sinners find great comfort in this personification and deification of love. The love deity is programmed to only treat us kindly. We have a 'mush' god. A biblical truth thus becomes twisted into an excuse for complacency. Such a view of God contributes to the pervasive idea (even among Christians) that God is obligated to save me. Created humanity is put on par with the Creator and his autonomy and salvation by grace is devilishly undercut.
"But what if the truth that God was love is balanced with the truth that God is light? God is morally pure, holy. He is a just judge. He is angry with sin and will punish those who persist in it. The love of God is now given a backbone. It is seen as a tough love, not as sentimentalism. That he can still love sinners and freely offer himself to all who believe becomes astounding news."