moderateBaptists.com

I am not sure if anyone has told him, but use of any swear word is the sort of thing that makes one fodder for hell’s stove-pipes.  Chris, Chris, Chris, how often we would have gathered you under our protective, reactionary, exaggerating, and somewhat enfeebled mental wings and you would not!  Repent!  Or thy wife shall leave thee!!!!!  (And pass that along to Alastair too, you crusty mouthed Brit).

Aren Maeir does us all the service of describing a workshop he and a who’s who of archaeologists attended.   Give it a read and be very, very envious.  Aren has a habit of describing things I would love to attend.

The current number of Zwingliana arrived today with the following contents:

Freudenberg, Matthias.«… und Zwingli vor mir wie eine überhängende Wand». Karl Barths Wahrnehmung der Theologie Huldrych Zwinglis in seiner Göttinger Vorlesung von 1922/23

Müller, Barbara. Zwingli und das Konzil von Gangra

Stephens, Peter. The Sacraments in the Confessions of 1536, 1549, and 1566 – Bullinger’s Understanding in the Light of Zwingli‘s

Buckenberger, Anja. Heinrich Bullingers Rezeption des Lucretia-Stoffes

Moser, Christian. Geschichtskonzeption und -methodologie. Dokumente zur Zürcher Historiographie des Reformationszeitalters. Ludwig Lavater: Konzept einer Reformationsgeschichte (1559) / Brief an Pontisella d. J. (1579/80)

Bernhard, Jan-Andrea. Von Adligen, Studenten und Buchdruckern in Ungarn. Ein Beitrag zur «Wende» vom lutherischen zum reformierten Bekenntnis im protestantischen Ungarn des 16. Jahrhunderts

Opitz, Peter. «Fortgekämpft und fortgerungen …» – J. C. Lavaters Verkündigung der Gnade im Rahmen seiner Christusreligion

Bächtold, Hans Ulrich, Hans Jakob Haag, Luca Baschera, Christian Moser. Neue Literatur zur zwinglischen Reformation Buchbesprechungen.

As usual, a fine selection of essays by the very finest of Reformation scholars.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

At least on this issue.  He is, in my estimation, right on the mark with his observations.  But don’t get overly excited.  My agreement with him on this issue doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about Wrightianity.  Even a monkey can type one real word.  Everyone is right sometime.  Most people can be right about something at least once.

James Tabor has a post worth reading today over on his blog on the topic of apocalyptic.  He defines apocalyptic as follows:

I use the term “apocalyptic,” at least as applied to ancient Judaism and early Christianity, to refer to the notion that the hidden realities of the unseen world are being revealed in an imminent and unfolding manner at the “end of the age.” It is not the “end of the world,” but rather a dramatic reversal and transformation of normal life on planet earth.

Is he correct?  Read and decide.

300 billion dollars is the amount spent so far in the Bush Iraq debacle.  And a report today suggests that a goodly portion of that money has simply been wasted on frivolous and unnecessary rubbish.  The Rapid City Journal reports

The U.S. government wasted tens of millions of dollars in Iraq reconstruction aid, including scores of unaccounted-for weapons and a never-used camp for housing police trainers with an Olympic-size swimming pool, investigators say.  The quarterly audit by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is the latest to paint a grim picture of waste, fraud and frustration in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has cost taxpayers more than $300 billion and left the region near civil war.

Read it all, be enraged, and realize that all that wasted money, and all the money thrown away in Iraq, could have been used to feed our own hungry, clothe our own naked, provide medical attention to our own ill, and build new schools, among many other things.  Thanks again, Mr President, and Congress.