Southern Bread Blog

If you hadn’t already heard about what Kathy Griffin said while receiving her Emmy, here are the actual comments:

So, what should we make of this as Christians? Obviously it hurts to hear someone trample the most sacred person in our lives. Beyond that feeling though there really isn’t much to say or do about
it. People like Kathy Griffin just embarrass themselves with these sorts of statements. It exposes her in a way that probably makes her ashamed in private. Statements like hers are designed to do
one thing: hurt people. That’s how she gets her kicks evidently, and that is the lowest form of mirth. It’s shameful to watch her do that to herself. She is basically a verbal bully. She’s a lot
like George Carlin in that respect. They say things like that in the safe, comfortable atmosphere of a wine and dine hollywood awards show where everyone will dutifully laugh along with her. Change
any of the parameters though, and those words will never leave her lips.

Bullies get there jollies from the feeling of power they get watching someone be scared of them. They always run in packs and they always do their thing in settings that are stacked in their favor.
It’s the same thing here. Does anyone think that she would say “Suck it, Allah” while on a USO tour in Iraq? There is no way. There would be instant muslim retaliation. But because some of Christ’s
central teachings are to “turn the other cheek” and “if you live by the sword you will die by the sword” then our treasure is a safe target for her. I pitty her the same way that I pitty someone who
would beat up a cripple for fun. If taking things that are sacred to others and trashing them is how she likes to have fun then nobody ever taught her properly how to integrate into society. She
defines the term anti-social.

Like I said though. There really isn’t much to say or do about it. In a way we have brought it on oureslves by the foolish comments we make. The first part of her comments actually touched on a
grain of truth in that regard. It is silly to thank Jesus for winning a football game or an award. Just ask Reggie White. He learned that lesson himself:

Implying that Jesus helped you win a football game has the dual implication that the committed Christians on the other team didn’t have God’s favor somehow. That’s just foolishness. I understand why people say it. I just think it does
more harm than good. We left the door open in that regard. Sure, normal caring citizens would never hurt their neighbor like that on purpose, even if the door was left open. But, normal caring
people wouldn’t rob their neighbors house if they left it unlocked while they were away either. Kathy Griffin isn’t a normal caring person. She’s a harrier; if only by virtue of her media presence.

Saw this on another blog and had to link it here. Turn the volume down when you play it. The raucus laughing is annoying. Just… have… to… eat… more… ca…..

There was a very interesting post on Creation Evolution Headlines the other day. It’s got to do with some of the new research coming out of the genetics front. Evidently the whole notion of the “gene” and what exactly constitutes the “building blocks” of human genetics is getting fuzzier instead of clearer. Here are the highlights:

Go check out the post. It’s very intriguing. It’s another example of how things get so much more complicated as we start to reveal the lower order processes of nature. This is counter-intuitive on a naturalistic worldview. It’s irreducible complexity again and again.

My buddy saw this today. This has to be one of the most brutal football hits I’ve ever seen. I bet Stacy never caught another swing pass again.

While perusing the latest church newsletter I ran across a statement in the pastor’s weekly section that really touched one of my hot buttons. The phrase was: “Healthy churches grow.” Now, that statement is literally true. But what is implied by it is not sound. It’s the same as saying, “Christians get cancer.” Sure they do, but non-christians get cancer too. And likewise, some Christians don’t get cancer. The statement is basically meaningless, because it can’t prove what it implies. It’s equivocal. When it comes to this idea that membership growth is directly proportional to the spiritual health of a church, I have three thoughts:

The bottom line is that churches need to stop focusing on gimmicky growth oriented mininstries like “Soccer with Jesus” and get back to teaching Christians to think clearly about doctrine, theology and evangelism. John Owen’s teaching, while in Fordham, brought in many people from the surrounding parishes that were curious to hear what this brilliant theologian had to say. They came to hear about God, not to be entertained. James Boice once said that what you win them with is what you win them to. That is one of the most profound truths our modern church needs to keep in mind. When the “stuff” that brought them in changes or dwindles, the congregation will move on to the church down the street that has more or newer “stuff”. Church growth has nothing to do with spiritual health and never will.

Once I get going with these silly videos I can’t stop. I ran into this one today on Slashdot. Seriously, this is so goofy it hurts. It looks like a sales video aimed at resellers but who knows?

Maybe the 70’s had H.R. Pufnstuf, but the 00’s have Yo Gabba Gabba! to scare your kids to death.

This has to be one of the funniest things I’ve seen come out of the “Jesus Junk” stores in a while. At least since the “Prayer of Jabez” shoelaces. Come on people!

I listened to the August 19 episode of Stand to Reason yesterday and Greg had Mark D. Roberts on the show talking about the historical reliability of the gospels. Greg asked him a couple of questions specifically about the so-called 70 AD argument for dating the gospels. I’ve blogged on this before and think it’s a pretty convincing argument. Mark didn’t find it as compelling, although he did say that he thought it was generally a good one. His reason for not finding it compelling is that he is leary of arguments based on “authorial intent”. That is, arguments that depend on a knowledge of why the author either omitted or included a certain peice of information.

I am sympathetic to his reservations, but I think it’s almost impossible not to employ authorial intent into textual criticism at some point. He even did it himself later on in the show. When Greg asks him about who wrote the gospels he gives an argument that goes like this: Mark and Luke were not companions of Jesus so if the actual authors, or the later church, were going to forge names onto them they would surely have chosen names that were more closely associated with Jesus like Peter. This is the same type of authorial intent argument that the 70 AD argument relies on and it can be challenged the same way. What if the authors decided that it would be more convincing to use names not associated with Christ because that would make the deception not look so obvious to later critics? This way of refuting intent arguments is just hard to swallow. It’s a “you knew that I knew that you knew” argument that always ends in an infinite regress.

Overall I thouroughly enjoyed his comments and thought his reasoning was spot on. This inconsistency just jumped out though.

With college football kickoff right around the corner I’m going to repost the gameday food posts from last year.

Can you make it through a football season without these little gems? I doubt it. Call ’em whatever you like but I call them nature’s crack. Once you start spooning them onto your chinette you won’t stop until you hate them thoroughly. There are so many different sauces you can make these with that it’s hard to narrow it down. I’ll just put down what we usually do and you can sub. any sauce you want. Making these is so simple that only a man would consider this a “recipe”. So here’s to you men out there!