My daughter sent me this and now I understand - not!
1.) FINE: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.
2.) FIVE MINUTES: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour.Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.
3.) NOTHING: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in "fine."
4.) GO AHEAD: This is a dare, not permission. Don't Do It!
5.) LOUD SIGH: This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinksyou are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to #3 for the meaning of nothing.)
6.) THAT'S OKAY: This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.
7.) THANX: A woman is thanking you, do not question, or Faint. Just say you're welcome.
8.) WHATEVER: Is a women's way of saying STUFF YOU!
9.) DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, I'VE GOT IT: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a manto do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking "What's wrong?" For the woman's response refer to #3.
Send this to the men you know, to warn them about argumentsthey can avoid if they remember theterminology.
Send this to all the women you know to give them a good laugh,cause they know it's true.
Saturday, 22 September 2007
Friday, 31 August 2007
Form and Substance
Thinking further about being in between churches at the moment and ‘visiting’, and struggling with an issue that has bothered me for some time. I know what and whom I believe, finding no problems with my faith as far as that goes. I am finding the whole churchgoing thing a problem however and think I may have put my finger on why.
There is a trend today toward the new, the innovative and much of what used to be ‘mainstream’ church is cast aside and considered ‘traditional’, as though it was merely form and lacked substance. This has resulted in a shallow church experience as people constantly seek God’s immanence through innovative and experimental worship but neglect God's established Word. My argument is that it is the form that gives shape to the substance and that the formless, liquid ambivalent experience that calls itself ‘church’ today is proven insubstantial for the very reason that it lacks form!
As an example, young people seem to have an ‘experience’ of God but haven’t the first idea about how to talk to him. They don’t know the thrill that a developed prayer vocabulary can give you when talking to God, often falling back on the old saw about the Spirit speaking for us when we run out of words (Romans 8:26). I observe that these days they run out of words because they had so few to begin with and, far from needing help from God's Holy Spirit, they need help from God's Holy Word to educate them in the profound language of prayer.
The names of God are not pressed into service, the exploits of God are not recounted, the declared purposes of God are not repeated, the prayers of God's people do not reflect the heart of God as revealed in Scripture.
Worse, when people come into church they are often disillusioned with the world but are often disappointed to find the world in the church! I think of the great cathedral builders who constructed edifices made to reflect the experience of stepping out of the kingdom of this world and stepping into the House of God. Is that our experience today? All too often the answer is no.
There is a trend today toward the new, the innovative and much of what used to be ‘mainstream’ church is cast aside and considered ‘traditional’, as though it was merely form and lacked substance. This has resulted in a shallow church experience as people constantly seek God’s immanence through innovative and experimental worship but neglect God's established Word. My argument is that it is the form that gives shape to the substance and that the formless, liquid ambivalent experience that calls itself ‘church’ today is proven insubstantial for the very reason that it lacks form!
As an example, young people seem to have an ‘experience’ of God but haven’t the first idea about how to talk to him. They don’t know the thrill that a developed prayer vocabulary can give you when talking to God, often falling back on the old saw about the Spirit speaking for us when we run out of words (Romans 8:26). I observe that these days they run out of words because they had so few to begin with and, far from needing help from God's Holy Spirit, they need help from God's Holy Word to educate them in the profound language of prayer.
The names of God are not pressed into service, the exploits of God are not recounted, the declared purposes of God are not repeated, the prayers of God's people do not reflect the heart of God as revealed in Scripture.
Worse, when people come into church they are often disillusioned with the world but are often disappointed to find the world in the church! I think of the great cathedral builders who constructed edifices made to reflect the experience of stepping out of the kingdom of this world and stepping into the House of God. Is that our experience today? All too often the answer is no.
Monday, 20 August 2007
September Dawn
Hollywood is about to release a film, September Dawn, depicting the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre in which 120 settlers were slaughtered by mormonsa s they passed through Utah on the way to California. Michael Medved, the film critic, has written a scathing review in anticipation of the film's release (It seems more like a political/social opinion piece on the issue based on viewing trailers than a art review) http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/08/hollywoods-terr.html#uslPageReturn
I found his comments and obsrvations interesting though somewhat puzzling and here are my own (less than unbiased) thoughts.
I have more than a little sympathy with Medved’s views regarding Hollywood. The centre of the American film industry has a very poor record when it comes to recreating and depicting ‘historical’ issues. You only have to consider films like Braveheart (a romping adventure with little more than a tenuous grip on its supposed historical context), The Patriot ( no doubt appealing to many a gun-toting modern patriot but fast and loose doesn’t begin to describe the way the history was handled) and UB 571 (a total fiction). Nevertheless, I am puzzled by some of the issues he raises.
He asks, “Why would Hollywood release a controversial feature film about alleged Mormon terrorists of 150 years ago while all but ignoring the dangerous Muslim terrorists of today.” I imagine for the same reason that God’s mouthpiece for the world, the Mormon prophet, avoids the subject of Islamic terrorism, i.e. it isn’t good for business. Medved is missing the big issues here. The world stands on the brink of political, ideological, not to say environmental disaster and what does the prophet have to say? “Aren’t our youth wonderful?” Don’t blame the Hollywood moguls for following his example! They have an eye on the bottom line as much as Hinckley, and with greater justification. After all, they are in the movie business and he is supposed to be in the prophecy business.
And how odd to read a Jew promoting a “that was then, this is now” agenda! The spirits of the self-vaunting Joseph Smith and the totalitarian Brigham Young still prevail in a church that recognises no authority outside its own hierarchy, will truck no opposition from without or within, will go to any lengths to manufacture its own history and image and which guards the reputation of its first leaders with the same zeal that the Kremlin guarded Lenin and Stalin and the People’s Party still guard that of Mao. The spirit of Mormonism has not changed in its fundamentals and so even 170 years later we need to know and understand its roots and the journey it has taken. And why should that be so very odd? Isn’t that what history is about? Whether Hollywood has done a good, even a fair job remains to be seen, but whether the job needs doing is surely not in doubt – lest we forget.
I found his comments and obsrvations interesting though somewhat puzzling and here are my own (less than unbiased) thoughts.
I have more than a little sympathy with Medved’s views regarding Hollywood. The centre of the American film industry has a very poor record when it comes to recreating and depicting ‘historical’ issues. You only have to consider films like Braveheart (a romping adventure with little more than a tenuous grip on its supposed historical context), The Patriot ( no doubt appealing to many a gun-toting modern patriot but fast and loose doesn’t begin to describe the way the history was handled) and UB 571 (a total fiction). Nevertheless, I am puzzled by some of the issues he raises.
He asks, “Why would Hollywood release a controversial feature film about alleged Mormon terrorists of 150 years ago while all but ignoring the dangerous Muslim terrorists of today.” I imagine for the same reason that God’s mouthpiece for the world, the Mormon prophet, avoids the subject of Islamic terrorism, i.e. it isn’t good for business. Medved is missing the big issues here. The world stands on the brink of political, ideological, not to say environmental disaster and what does the prophet have to say? “Aren’t our youth wonderful?” Don’t blame the Hollywood moguls for following his example! They have an eye on the bottom line as much as Hinckley, and with greater justification. After all, they are in the movie business and he is supposed to be in the prophecy business.
And how odd to read a Jew promoting a “that was then, this is now” agenda! The spirits of the self-vaunting Joseph Smith and the totalitarian Brigham Young still prevail in a church that recognises no authority outside its own hierarchy, will truck no opposition from without or within, will go to any lengths to manufacture its own history and image and which guards the reputation of its first leaders with the same zeal that the Kremlin guarded Lenin and Stalin and the People’s Party still guard that of Mao. The spirit of Mormonism has not changed in its fundamentals and so even 170 years later we need to know and understand its roots and the journey it has taken. And why should that be so very odd? Isn’t that what history is about? Whether Hollywood has done a good, even a fair job remains to be seen, but whether the job needs doing is surely not in doubt – lest we forget.
The Great [Mormon] Game
Some friends were discussing the place of Bruce McConkie's book Mormon Doctrine in Mormon thinking. It is very popular still yet has come in for criticism from both inside and outside the Mormon Church. It was observed, however, that Mormons have stayed shy of actually specifying where McConkey went wrong in his writing and theology. The key to understanding this is the observation that Mormons ‘regard these sources as authoritative’, i.e. the sources McConkie uses in the book.
People who have never been Mormons will be familiar with the verbal and intellectual contortions a Mormon will perform in order to avoid directly and specifically criticising an ‘authority’. They will readily admit that ‘our leaders are not perfect’ but will not concede a specific error – ‘rather than do so I would suffer my throat to be cut’.
Only when you have been a Mormon do you fully know with what glee the typical Mormon plays ‘the great game’. They relish the tabloid theology of McConkie and his progeny in FARMS and FAIR and, not unlike some Evangelical believers, anticipate that time when they will be vindicated and all dissenters sent to burn. Until that day they play the game with varying degrees of skill and aplomb, confident that every dissembling, disingenuous denial will be met that day with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Truth is Mormons lie, often competently, frequently knowingly, to themselves as much as to you.
The problem Christians have with this is that so many have bought into the liberal postmodern agenda of this modern world. They have bought into relativism, liberalism, deconstructionism and any number of wacky ideas that make them question the evidence of their own senses. Because of this they can't accept what God has said about the lost, about those who worship false gods, about those for whom this world is infinitely more important than the next. They don't like to think ill of these nice guys and can't imagine they would lie let alone knowingly.
If they think this way then they don't see the urgency for reaching out to Mormons because they don't seem all that lost. But they lie, often competently, frequently knowingly, to themselves as much as to you. This is because they are lost and need to hear the gospel. The only ground we have in common with them is that we once were lost like them. Otherwise...
People who have never been Mormons will be familiar with the verbal and intellectual contortions a Mormon will perform in order to avoid directly and specifically criticising an ‘authority’. They will readily admit that ‘our leaders are not perfect’ but will not concede a specific error – ‘rather than do so I would suffer my throat to be cut’.
Only when you have been a Mormon do you fully know with what glee the typical Mormon plays ‘the great game’. They relish the tabloid theology of McConkie and his progeny in FARMS and FAIR and, not unlike some Evangelical believers, anticipate that time when they will be vindicated and all dissenters sent to burn. Until that day they play the game with varying degrees of skill and aplomb, confident that every dissembling, disingenuous denial will be met that day with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Truth is Mormons lie, often competently, frequently knowingly, to themselves as much as to you.
The problem Christians have with this is that so many have bought into the liberal postmodern agenda of this modern world. They have bought into relativism, liberalism, deconstructionism and any number of wacky ideas that make them question the evidence of their own senses. Because of this they can't accept what God has said about the lost, about those who worship false gods, about those for whom this world is infinitely more important than the next. They don't like to think ill of these nice guys and can't imagine they would lie let alone knowingly.
If they think this way then they don't see the urgency for reaching out to Mormons because they don't seem all that lost. But they lie, often competently, frequently knowingly, to themselves as much as to you. This is because they are lost and need to hear the gospel. The only ground we have in common with them is that we once were lost like them. Otherwise...
Thursday, 16 August 2007
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