Today's News | Christian Views
| Home | Community | WorldMagBlog | Commentary | Previous Posts | Podcasts | Contact Us | Subscribe |
On our turf
Experts say the threat of domestic terrorism is growing
FULL STORY
An 'urgency': Sensing threats to institutions of society, church leaders make declaration
Bitter pill: GOP senators swallow hard as judicial nominee David Hamilton is confirmed
Just friends: Obama’s Asia agenda steered clear of any tough talk on human rights abuses 
Good morning!
I love this quote from an American author: “One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.”
All original content Copyright © 2009 WORLDmag.com and may not be reproduced without permission
Learn it! Speak it! Live it!
Bring Christmas to a child in need!
Click to Print
Include Comments
back to top43 Comments to “Whirled Views 3.11”
I realize it wasn’t Dietrich Bonfoeffer, but Pastor Bonhoeffer made a similar point in a wedding ceremony he composed and conducted.
He clarified (and this is my paraphrase from memory) that what a Christian wedding celebrates primarily is the institution of marriage. The celebration of love is secondary. After all, lots of people (married or not) have “love” in various degrees all over the emotional and moral map and many lose it and/or regain it. And yes, love may be worth celebrating, and often. But at a wedding, it is the marriage, the miracle of utuality in consenting and committing to a covenant bond, that is being celebrated most of all. It is a sacred insitituion worth celebrating for all it’s worth.
Bonhoeffer’s wisdom resided in a single man who knew true love but not marriage (the Nazis took the possibility of his marriage away from him, as well as his very life).
As a pastor myself, I have learned not to glibly say at weddings that we are “celebrating love.” I don’t discount the gift of love, but I know that marriage itself is at the heart of what is being celebrated at a wedding.
Report comment to moderator
Did anyone see the profile of Marvin Olasky’s Kings College in the Washington Post last month? I just happened to stumble on it through the Dallas Morning News religion blog last week. I was surprised WoW never linked to it. Maybe they did and I missed it. I was even more surprised that the evangelical school discourages its students from premarital sex, but doesn’t prohibit the practice. And in the light of all the talk on WoW about the dangers of identifying Christianity with right wing politics, I was amused to read this sentence: “All of the King’s students are assigned to “houses” with names like Thatcher, Reagan and Churchill.”
http://snipurl.com/21hhs
Report comment to moderator
And did anyone read about the Arkansas mayor/Christian preacher who announced that he’d abandoned his wife and children in Hammond, Indiana almost 30 years ago, and taken on a new identity (stolen from a dead man), and remarried and began a new life? And blamed it all on Satanists?
The freak’s real name is Don LaRose, who got quite a bit of notoriety back in the late 70s. In 1975 he was a preacher at a small town NY fundamentalist church who began “speaking out” against “local Satan worshipers”. He then began receiving abduction/death threats, according to him. Shortly thereafter he disappeared. His church feared the worst, and launched a massive search for him, talking about the alleged threats he’d received. The story made Christianity Today. Shortly thereafter, in 1977, someone who’d read the CT story recognized a man in Minnesota as the man in the story. But he was calling himself Bruce Kent Williams. He claimed to have been abducted by Satanists who threatened to kill his family if he returned. But his church, like everyone else, didn’t buy the story, and fired him. So he moved to Hammond and began pastoring there. But those darn Satanists got wind of it and started threatening him again. He began running the same game there, telling people that the Satanists were threatening him. And then one day in 1980, he disappeared, never to be heard from again. Until he was discovered a few days ago the other day as the mayor of a small town in AR who’s also a “Christian minister”. The freak is standing by the Satanist story, being too ashamed to admit that he just got sick of his wife and kids and thought he could do better somewhere else.
http://snipurl.com/21hjf
http://snipurl.com/21hjb
Report comment to moderator
Actually, the LaRose story is from November, not a few days ago.
Report comment to moderator
I don’t know who the author of the quote is, but, boy, do I know the truth of it! I can’t count the times I’ve fallen back in love with my husband.
Report comment to moderator
OK, I know now, but I’m not saying, Cause I looked it up. Should have known.
Report comment to moderator
Joel Mark: Spot on.
Report comment to moderator
Well good morning Night Train. I see you’re in a wonderful mood this Tuesday morning:)
Report comment to moderator
I fail to see your point Night Train…
Why don’t you just come out and say you hate Preachers and Christians and have done with it? Or is your purpose just to smear and ruin the reputation of all the rest who are not involved with this kind of thing?
Report comment to moderator
What are you babbling about, MIM? I posted it because it’s an interesting story. LaRose is hardly representative of most preachers, and I never claimed or even implied any such thing? I guess when WoW posted about Eliot Spitzer hiring prostitutes they were saying that all politicians hire prostitutes.
The competition for WoW Jenius of the Year is fierce!
Report comment to moderator
#3 A weirder still story for you.
A man was a prof at San Francisco Golden Gate Baptist theological seminary. The story he told was that he was abducted, beaten bloodily and left for dead but a family in Tennessee found him, got him to a hospital and helped him recover. But he had no memory of who he was or where he was from. (As an aside, no local hospital had any record of any such John Doe being brought to the ER)In time he took the name James and chose his last name from the Simmons mattress company.
So eventually this man who had been a pastor in the life he allegedly forgotten got back into the ministry. Wound up a prof at the Seminary. Then he was offered a job at a Metro Community Church in Dallas (gay church). It was then that his story unraveled.
The wife and infant daughter (now 18 years or so) were tipped off that their “missing and presumed dead” husb/father was alive and well. (They had collected life insurance). The gay congregation meanwhile felt that the controversy was too great and declined to hire the man for the ministry.
I dont know what if anything happened re: the insu payout or his “marriage”.
Report comment to moderator
Good morning, Adios. I’m feeling pretty good this morning. But what in the world is MIM’s problem?
Report comment to moderator
Wow, Sawgunner, I’d forgotten about that. That happened while I was living in Dallas a few years back and was all over the news. I don’t know which was more shocking to me at the time – the guy’s story, or the fact that there’s a gay church in Dallas. Plus, it’s an “evangelical” gay church, with conservative views on Biblical inerrancy, the deity of Christ, etc. Then I found out later that the biggest gay church in the world is in Dallas, caleld the Cathedral of Hope. It’s quite a bit more liberal than the other gay church.
Report comment to moderator
Night Train, a buddy who is a missionary in Taiwan knew this man. James Simmons had been one of his better profs. Needless to say, when the revelation came out lotsa folks at the Golden Gate seminary had egg on their face. The lesson here and it should be clear is this: do churches really know who it is they are tapping to be pastor, youth minister etc?
In Texas there was a huge uproar about the state’s decision to do fingerprint checks on classroom teachers, support staff etc. Perhaps churches should do likewise??
I would want to know why this man didnt go to the police with the letters or names of those Satanists who had threatened him.
Report comment to moderator
just checking in to let you know I am alive
Report comment to moderator
NIGHT TRAIN, you do realize Dallas has a lesbian county sheriff and almost had a gay man elected mayor? Old JR wouldnt recognize big D anymore.
Report comment to moderator
“I posted it because it’s an interesting story.’
You seem to post a lot of these “interesting” stories…. Are they interesting to you because they seem to always involve the downfall of pastors, conservatives, and Christians? Or am I getting you mixed up with another Night Train?
Report comment to moderator
NIGHT TRAIN, you do realize Dallas has a lesbian county sheriff and almost had a gay man elected mayor?
No, I didn’t. Wow.
Old JR wouldnt recognize big D anymore.
Nor would J. Frank Norris, one of the true legends among Fundamentalist Baptist preachers. If you’ve never heard of Norris, you should Google him. Quite a character, to put it mildly. People think Billy Sunday was a hoot? He was nothing compared to good ol’ J. Frank. Shot a man dead in his office, but was acquitted after claiming self defense. He wouldn’t be happy about a lesbian sheriff. He’d probably shoot somebody again. He probably would’ve shot someone back in the 1980s, too, when his old church building was turned into the Dallas Hard Rock Cafe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Frank_Norris
Report comment to moderator
As far as downfall’s go, what are the possible sentences Spitzer could receive??
I wonder how many AG investigations were squashed when the mob had such great blackmail material to use against Atty Gen and later Gov Spitzer?? I’ve read the FBI didnt pursue organized crime vigorously because the mob maintained career-destroying pix of J Edgar Hoover. Yet at the same time many DC powerbrokers knew Hoover was gay and made no big deal about it. I wonder how many Albany insiders knew and kept Spitzers secret??
Report comment to moderator
You seem to post a lot of these “interesting” stories…. Are they interesting to you because they seem to always involve the downfall of pastors, conservatives, and Christians? Or am I getting you mixed up with another Night Train?
Actually, I think you’re just a very careless reader. Either than or a fabulist. Why don’t you refer us to several of these “interesting” stories out of the “lots” you claim I’ve posted? I disagree with Christianity, but I often stick up for Christians (ask RDean and Anlir). I certainly don’t post all kinds of news stories about Christians gone bad. If I did, I’d have posted about the Liberty University dropout who killed a man at a St. Louis Starbucks the other day when the man ran after him after he stole the tip jar. Or I’d have posted about the 16 year old girl from the home school Christian family in TX who got her boyfriend and his buddy to murder her family because her parents disapproved of her dating him a few weeks ago. Unlike many WoW posters, I don’t see people who agree with me as pure and righteous, and those who disagree with me as evil. I didn’t post the story because the guy’s a Christian. I posted it because he’s a sociopath with no conscience, and because it’s interesting. I’d have posted it had he been a professor of biology teaching evolution.
Get a grip, MIM, and maybe a copy of Hooked on Phonics.
Report comment to moderator
And, if I’m always posting stories that make Christians look bad, then please explain my post on Saturday’s WV. You know, the one about the two lesbians who are calling Christians haters and bigots for opposing their “gay friendly” RV camp with the disgusting name of Camp Lickalotta.
Please start reading more carefully, MIM. You won’t make such a fool of yourself.
Report comment to moderator
The quote is great and so true.
Romantic love can be fleeting, agape endures.
It’s great when the eros is present, but it’s those times that it wanes and then returns that you feel most secure.
There are ebbs and flows to everything in life. Only God’s love is perfectly steadfast.
Report comment to moderator
In this month’s American Spectator, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. makes a very good case for abandoning the primary system and going back to the old convention system of selecting presidential candidates. His last paragraph reads:
“If our reformers really want to end the nightmare of $100 million primary campaigns and the trashiness of this primary season, they will bring back the good old days of national political conventions that really matter. I long to see candidates in silly hats rather in silly situations”
I think he has a point. We (not an editorial “we”, I think all of us-) are sick of politics by now.
I believe a convention system would have given us Hillary vs ?. McCain would have been a front runner, but Duncan Hunter and Romney would have had a better chance.
Report comment to moderator
Glad you’re alive, Kim!
Hi.
Report comment to moderator
Kim, we haven’t forgotten about you.
Report comment to moderator
Good morning, Kim, hope all is moving along nicely back your way.
Report comment to moderator
Chas, you are so right!
This primary season is trashy!!
I’m so sick of it.
My old pastor says it’s a turtle race being made out to be a horse race. There is so much talk, hype, manipulation, smearing and hyperbole that we’re all the worse for it.
Yuck!!!!
*rant off*
Report comment to moderator
Chas, I favor keeping the primaries. But for variety we ought not let the same states be the lead primary holders ea year. Iowa and New Hampshire are not complete microcosm’s of the USA. I’ve been told both are predominantly caucasian demographically. So in the heavily watched heavily waited “early” states minorities have less say. That just aint right.
You have a point though about conventions. We tended to get better nominees back in the old days, no? Will anyone here even watch the nominating conventions (assuming any commercial network is still goofy enough to run “gavel to gavel” coverage)? I dont think I will. Both will be little more than scripted coronations (party infomercials!)
It would be nice if McCain would deliver an acceptance speech and let the convention select his Veep nominee.
Report comment to moderator
In the waiting room at the doctor’s office yesterday, I started thumbing through the March 2008 National Geographic. As usual, an absolutely luscious collection of photos and articles on wonderfully interesting places and people.
I made it partway through an article called “At the Heart of All Matter – The hunt for the God particle.” I thought that some of you might like it. Excerpt from opening paragraphs below.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/god-particle/achenbach-text
I finished the article on-line this morning. Reading National Geographic online is
somewhat ofa gyp. Nowhere near as satisfying as resting the yellow-bordered periodical on your lap on a comfy chair and having your senses being overloaded by page after page of thick photo stock.So if you read it online, be sure to check out the photo gallery, separate from the article. Absolutely stunning!
Report comment to moderator
But, Chas, who gets to decide who attends the conventions and therefore hand-pick the nominee? I prefer the primary system because the people choose their party’s representative. One important change, though: only those registered as a member of a particular party should be allowed to choose that party’s nominee. If Independents want to choose a nominee, let them choose from those who would run as Independents. John McCain is the Republican nominee mainly because many of the early primaries allowed non-Republicans to vote for the Republican nominee. If voting had been restricted to Republicans, we’d have had a better chance of having a conservative nominee.
Report comment to moderator
RE#20
Night Train… I’m sorry. I must have mixed you up with someone else who makes it a habit to post anything and everything bad they can find about Pastors and Christians. It’s not my reading that’s at fault, it’s a poor memory.
Report comment to moderator
Dont know if this will be deemed newsworthy at Worldmag or not.
The USAF just bought a new fleet of aircraft refueling planes. These planes are made by the Airbus consortium.
Those poor Boeing workers! They were Spitzer’d by their own govt.
Report comment to moderator
Chas- I don’t know if you saw it or not, but I left a comment for you on 3-8 whirled views. It was post # 50. I wrote it later in the evening, so I don’t know if you saw it or not. Just wanted you to know.
Travis- Thanks for the link to the national geographic article- really quite fascinating reading.
Report comment to moderator
The DAILY MAIL
Britain braced for new storm front as forecasters warn ‘the worst is yet to come’
Last updated at 16:06pm on 11th March 2008
Check out the photo’s on this story, they are unbelievable!
Report comment to moderator
I should have mentioned there are about 8 or photo’s… the last few are amazing.
Report comment to moderator
WorthyGirl, I just went back and read your post on 3.8. I usually close down about 8-9p.m. so I won’t be distracted while reading.
It would be nece to get together sometime. I don’t know now how we could make that happen. We could invite you to a function at our church, or a Lion’s function, but we have nothing special at this time. But maybe an opportunity will happen.
If something is happening in Arden, let us know and maybe we can attend.
My e-mail
cwshull@bellsouth.net
If you (or someone else from here) contacts me, be sure to make it clear in the subject line. I am quick on the delete button.
Concerning the work with youth, I may volunteer to help at our youth building when it is finished. It depends on what they need.
Report comment to moderator
Chas,
We’ll be your way in April and June and would love to get together!
Report comment to moderator
Cameron
I’ve already mentioned that to TJ. He says you will be at Bonclarken. Do they allow Baptists there?
Report comment to moderator
Victoria, the first one I saw, photographed from a distance, was so powerful, but when I scrolled down and saw how close the water was to that church, it gave me chills. Thanks for the headsup.
Report comment to moderator
This is for all you Republicans who supported this man. Who else could make merry out of Katrina (brown brown grass of home), and pardoning Scooter? It’s called, “The glass is half full”.
I do believe the comments below the video are as fun as the video of Bush singing his “farewell”. I thought the comment about the “stain” was especially touching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYJqSWLCB60
Report comment to moderator
TJ and Cameron,
Convert him, please.
Report comment to moderator
I’m going to guess Flannery O’Connor.
Report comment to moderator
Judith Viorst?
Report comment to moderator
back to topJoin The Conversation
You need to be a registered user of WORLDonTheWeb.com to "join the conversation."
If you are not a member yet, what are you waiting for? Register / Login Now!