Watch me blow your mind:

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Take this tall pint of frothy deep thought in and see if your head doesn't spin.

I was recently around a very nice, thoroughly Christian woman, who is a great parent and solid american citizen and as such the sarcasm and general rudeness of any statement I make shouldn't be viewed as an attack on her, but one the thought process of so much of the population. Take the jump to have your mind blown.

With that giant run on sentence out of the way, let me tell you a story that will blow your mind, remember me talking about that a second ago? The topic of "The Simpsons" came up in conversation one day and this dedicated and well intentioned mother said something along the lines of, "I don't let my mine watch those misbehaving kids." Then another mother nodded in agreement. It's been a few days and I was just making up my Amazon.com wish list when I happened to run across the ample seasons of The Simpsons. I almost clicked it then I heard that nice and fully competent mother's voice in my head.

I paused and thought about what I was going to do, then I started thinking about this. If it is so bad for children to watch a cartoon television show under the watch of their parents then how much worse is it to send them to public school where the kids are worse than Bart could ever hope to be and some of the teachers make Homer look like a role model.

I have lots of friends who home school or are going to homeschool. They get abused for their choice a lot by parents who think their kids need to be around the things that they abhor on television. I think the logic is pretty strong that if you don't think your kids should be around it when it's fake, then your kids shouldn't be around it when it's real. So if you've ever thought that way, then check your hypocrisy switch, it might be flicked.

I'm not trying to draw a line in the sand either. Home schooling isn't for everyone and a lot of that is because of time and cost. Don't hate me. It's a sticky topic, one best answered by Voddie Baucham. He's pretty fair and balanced. Wink Wink.

You may now begin picking up the pieces of your mind.

Is hell unloving?

I got to travel with my fiance to Birmingham, Alabama the other night. We went to see some of her old students graduate from high school. They had over sold the event and it was standing room only. So we left and I got an ICEE. ICEE's are so good.

The night really boiled down to six hours of driving for twenty minutes of picture taking. Although one of the girls did give Jennie a paper that she wrote about her. That was very touching. All that to say, I had some time to think on the way home while Jennie slept. Take the jump.



Jennie was precious on the way up, promising me that she would stay awake because she new she was taking a half day and could stay up. I, of course, new better and prepared myself to drive home. I got a chance to listen to the debate between Gene Cook Jr. (Host of the Narrow Mind podcast) and the very nice atheist Professor, Neal Basham. They debated whether God existed, in an hour, plenty of time. Seriously though, I did enjoy it and both sides gave interesting arguments.

Dr. Basham's credentials coming into the debate apparently hinged on a paper he wrote as it was brought up several times. In the paper he posited that God lies to us in a loving way, to save people. Basham more or less said, Hell is a lie to scare us into a relationship with God so that we can become good people.

I hadn't heard that before. It's nice to hear something new every now and then. What struck me was the idea that Hell is unjust and unloving. Which God me thinking about how Dr. Basham could have misunderstood what seems plain in scripture to me.

The idea of it being unjust is easy to cover. It's unjust if you don't view yourself in light of an objective source of absolution. God being that pinnacle leaves us always coming up short of taking the first step toward attaining that absolute good. So, Hell is just because no one deserves heaven. No one is like God. No one goes to Heaven. Hell is just and reasonable in the Christian world view.

When Dr. Basham brought up the idea that God is love and loving to his family, in an attempt to save them - it got me thinking. How is Hell loving? Is God love even unto those whom go to Hell? I don't jive with the idea of "God loves you all the way to Hell". I lean Calvinist. God's Sovereign, he doesn't watch hopefully as you flit about Him.

So, Hell is a part of God's sovereignty. How is that part of His loving decree? It made me think, and without going to scripture I rode home with that in my mind. I wasn't about to say that God stops being love for some reason. He is what He is, and that left me with trying to figure out how Hell could be loving.

It made me think about how God could be loving and have His part in people going to hell. I mean, if it's not God it's sin and if it's not heaven it's Hell so how could God's creation of Hell ever be considered a loving act? Now, I want to hear what other people have to say about this, but let me tell you where I ended up.


Christ calls us to hate our mothers and family, that scripture has been belabored and everyone basically says, "Well . . . it doesn't really mean hate so much as love God so much that your love for others would be like hate." It can seem a bit convoluted, and that verse alone deserves more than a sentence, but it sets up where I'm coming from. Hell is a loving response when you consider the other option, an eternity in front of God. "But, Chris, won't I have an eternity in front of God?"

The answer is, YES! Thankfully/Hopefully you'll be in front of Him as a son or daughter co-inheritors with Christ. Imagine what would happen if those that God considered His enemies could never escape from Him. I believe Hell would be nothing compared to the constant, aggressive, pro-active vengeance and wrath that would fall on that person for eternity. The enemy of God would beg for hell.

Now, this is just me bumbling around on a road trip and shouldn't be taken as my personal theology as I haven't compared it too deeply to scripture or spent more than a few hours thinking about it. Although, it is fair to say that the whole argument falls apart when you take into account the fact that Hell is the absence of God. So you couldn't have Hell in his presence. Just some thoughts and I'd love to hear what you think!

In light of the recent drought:

I would like to put forward a thought. A look at situational ethics and the plight the the American conscience. A brief foray into how little we appreciate the world around us. Take the jump.


Every day that I drive to work, I take a back road that runs me through some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. I see lush green grass and giant ponderous cows. Occasionally, I see a horse running, seemingly for no other reason than because it can. I love taking this back road, it's a nice break for a city mouse like me.

At one point I turn onto a less rural road and start heading into town. On this road there is the item in question. I see the thing that seems to encompass everything that doesn't make sense about America. It's a sod farm. A grass farm.

It always has gigantic sprinklers going, unleashing torrents of water. Water that is as of now precious. Water that is depleting our 90 day store. Water for grass.

What a waste. The sod won't grow to feed people somewhere. In the long run it feeds a bit of narcissism. Which is really what this is all about. The sod farm, for me, is one of the greatest signs of American narcissism imaginable. Shame on us for wasting precious resources in search of the all American dollar. How Un-Christlike, how inhuman is it to know that we have the plot of land and the ability to farm it and waste it on grass.

I hope we all take a long look at how we use our resources. The world is watching us and will really call into question our Gospel if we can't give any proof to the fact that when He was hungry we fed Him. Give up narcissism.

What's 5-11, 212 lbs, fast, but oh so slow?

Clinton Portis

Cute, eh? Clinton Portis, Michael Vick, and pretty much everyone on TV is a bad role model. Let me give you a little back story on myself and where this is coming from.

I would like to think that when people consider my decision making process they can call it at least Biblically sound. I'm sure that people will call my decision making process lots of things, but biblically sound is really what I'm shooting for. Take for instance the fact that I work in a society that really loves hunting. For them hunting is equal parts sport and networking.

As most of you know, I am not a hunter. I like to think that I've become quite good at gathering. You know; gathering ground beef, gathering Hamburger Helper, gathering a 2 liter of Coconut soda. I am a gatherer. As is the case I have had to come to an opinion of hunting as I regularly faced it. It was either going to be Biblical or not.

Well, friends, I came to my opinion and I made my peace with hunting. You won't catch me blowing a hole in Bambi's gut, but I see the value for those around me. I reconciled it with the beginning of Genesis where we are told to rule over animals, I believe a level of responsibility came with that ruler ship as denoted by naming. Then meshing that with the later account of God saying we can eat just about anything and everything. . .till Leviticus. (Read Gen. chapters 1-9)

So I figure the point of hunting is to keep reign over animals. In so doing a necessary culling activity and protecting animals from over population. I know some of you are ready to flip out because it's our fault that they don't have homes. That's another fish for later frying. So hunting serves purposes and if done for it's biblical purposes is not sinful. Of course it can become a sinful activity if it becomes an idol or becomes an improper reign over God's creation.

So, you can see I wrestle with stuff. I check it and try to get it right. Which is why the most recent verbal diarrhea from Clinton Portis struck me so hard. He defended Dog Fighting. Dog fighting, to me, seems to fall in that area of poor treatment of God's creation. Is the meat being eaten? Is this really honoring to God? Do the full grown men watching hungry dogs snap at each other realize they are devaluing God's creation. I'm sure it's not hunting, and I'm sure it's not ok.

All of that to say this. Clinton Portis is a bad role model. Clinton Portis thinks my Atlanta Falcon's quarterback, Michael Vick is a good role model. That means Michael is a bad role model. And, it's time we stop letting TV time define role model worthiness. Full submission to Jesus Christ should be the merit of worth for all Christians. We fall so short when we place any level of worth on a person for any other reason.

So, in hindsight, Clinton said some really dumb stuff. That's to be expected from fallen man. His buddy backed up his dumb stuff. Which is to be expected from fallen man. Michael Vick is going to have a bad season, which is inevitably expected. Don't put your faith in a man, no matter what the hype, because he'll do something or say something dumb. Like saying, on national television, that there is nothing wrong with a little dog fighting.

Yeesh! This stuff never happens with the professional Boggle players.