Dearly beloved

We are gathered here, in the sight of William Perry and Walter Payton, to plead for Rex Grossman's mental state.

Dear Lord, this sunday in Miami, let Rex be the player that downed seven teams with a passer rating of over a 100 in the regular season, not the panicky little kid who rated sub 50 in five more interception strewn failure fests, culminating in being pulled with a rating of ZERO vs the mighty Green Bay (Please note, my allegience will always lie with Green Bay, but the Bears are my boys as long as Joy lives in our house).

Dear Lord, let Rex see with the vision that picked off three plays for a final drive of 69 yards in 4Q of the Saints games, not the one who spilled four versus the cheeseheads.

Dear Lord, let him, you know, just not be rubbish. Please?

In the name of the father (Lovie Smith) , the Son (Brian Urlacher) and the Holy Spirit (those umpires in their funky new duds. Nice . . . )

Words that sustain

Jamming with Caddick Tuesday night, was moved to recall the songs that have kept me on my walk since this time last year. Thought I'd share them with you - poetry and truth are a potent mix.

• I've given like a beggar and lived like the rich
  crafted myself a more comfortable cross
  Yet what I am called to is deeper than this,
  It's time you had my whole life
• Reach out your hand to save me where I've have fallen down
  And in your grace, O Saviour lift me from this place
• Your beauty and your majesty are far beyond compare
  You've won my heart now this will be my prayer
  Take the world but give me Jesus
  You're the treasure in this life
  For time and for eternity I know I'm in your care
  You've won my heart now this will be my prayer
• When satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within
  upward I look and see Him there, who made an end to all my sin
  Because the sinless Saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free
  For God the just is satisfied, to look on Him and pardon me
• Long my imprisoned spirit lay
  fast bound in sin and nature's plight
  Thine eye diffused a quickening ray
  I rose, the dungeon filled with light
  My chains fell off, my heart was free
  I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

More on Dawkins

Was thinking around some of Roberto's comments on a post late last week. I don't think it's as simple as dismissing someone as un intellectual if they don't bother doing the research before they write on something. There's other words for that. Dawkins is no doubt an extremely capable and intelligent man - in his field. But in the same way I wouldn't pretend to have the capacity to write about, say, organic famring methods in Yemen, with any degree of accuracy, perhaps dawkins could take the lesson on board? That the overwhelming response to his work from rational, real, intellectually capable Christians is that he simply misses the point nearly all the time - by assuming his presuppositions equal truth and 'setting up straw men to knock them down'. If I were the receiver of all this criticism (or Christicism (C) ) from an established school of intellectual enquiry i.e. theology - I might want to listen and learn from them . . . ?

Bishop Mike put me the way of a review, which included this gem about the nature of God.

Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.

Anti-hero

Ladies and gentlemen of the UK, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Senator James M.Inhofe . Famous quotes and other bon mots are the stock in trade for your average blogger, and the Marshes even have an entire blog of quotes. So here is one from that (thankfully) outgoing head of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee.

"(Climate change is) the greatest hoax ever perpetrated"

Now join with with me in thanking the democratic process for enabling the removal of this man from any kind of environmental policy committee. He is now free to expose other, similar, great conspiracies of our time designed to rob the US of its economic productivity, like, you know, the Holocaust, or the Earth being round. God speed you, sir - all the way back to Oklahoma.

180 numero two

Crikey

The things done in His name . . .

Matt

The root of all of evil

I always feel really refreshed when Dawkins attacks Christianity. I am grateful for the opportunity to show that Christianity as an experiential, holistic and personal reality stands up to intellectual criticism.

Is religion the root of all evil? I don't think so - I think Humans are. The one constant behind every instance of all that is depraved, life stealing, dark and abhorrent is, sadly, a human being. Sin, defined by Luther, is humanity turned in on itself. This makes every single human enterprise capable of both the highest high of purity, charity and integrity and the lowest depth of selfishness, de-humanisation and cruelty. The church is, sadly no-exception in its current state.

Many technologies or systems in the modern world are entirely neutral, until turned toward a particular purpose by human desires. Case in point - I just read an incredibly helpful article from a website which distributes high quality teaching for free. I then read here that the same technology platform is being used by obsessed and abusive ex-es as a means to torment and torture their former partners.

I wish the zeitgeist would turn the way of G K Chesterton's awareness of sin. When asked to contribute to an essay competition of leading thinkers, on 'what's wrong with the world' he answered ' Dear Sirs, I am. '. More than an echo of Romans 7 there . . . ! If well realised the depth of our fall as a race, maybe we might welcome the one who provided a rescue . . .

Happy new year!

Haven't got much time as I just got in and we're driving to Vancouver to see the Sopwiths and Phil in an hour, but here is where I saw the new year in. The party was in the EMP, an amazing musuem which gives you the history of Seattle residents like Jimi Hendrix, and all kinds of crazy cool stuff, plus massive stages and live disco covers bands like these guys .

We went to a church called Quest yesterday and had an amazing time reflecting on the year gone past. It's been a good one for me overall. Bring on the '07! Jump on it! Jump on it! (private joke).

See you all soon,

Matt