We're the Pro-Abortion, Pro-Female-Military Party

I would hope that these kinds of responses would not gain any traction in any state outside of New England or California, but America could prove me to be naive.

Are the Psalms Trinitarian?

One of the recent criticisms I have heard of the heavy or exclusive use of psalmody in worship is that Christ's name is not mentioned therein, nor is the doctrine of the Trinity explicitly found. Men who I know and respect have said this, and I have recently heard the same over at Reformation21. Here's a great article, arguing that the Psalms are rather a place where God the Three-in-One is explicitly praised, and with Biblical emphasis.

Theocracy or theocracy

Lots of articles from this guy lately, I know... Here is another one from Doug Wilson, and I promise, it, too, is worth reading. One thing that Reformed theology has always stressed is that nature abhors a God-shaped vacuum. That is, there is no such thing as a person or culture that does not serve a god (or God). So, the calls for God to be taken out of government ring hollow, as the only reason we want God out, is so that we can have another god in his place. This god, in its tamest form, is a god of liberty and tolerance, but even if tame, no false god is good or powerful. No different than Gomer's other clients, this god forces payment from those who prostitute themselves to it.

It would be bad enough if Christians in this country had decided that a morality could exist apart from the worship of the Lord Jesus. Here we would have only denied that God's character is that which defines good, and that His worship is the foundation of good morality.

Unfortunately, the problem is even deeper. The thing is that we Christians don't want the God of the Bible too close to us. We're not sure if we really like how he dealt with nations that did not worship him, so we don't want to align ourselves too closely with him. Not only do we not believe God to be good, we even cast judgement from our lofty seat in the courtroom of fools.

Recipes for the time-starved

A nice little article from the New York Times, complete with 2 sentence recipes for meals that take 10 minutes or less to make. Some of these look really nice.

Vocab 019

Besides getting taller and testing our consistence in discipline over the past few months, Anna Ruth has added many new words to her vocabulary.
Here is a list of all her new words:

Anna Doo (Anna Ruth)
walk

Bible
God

two
bow

hat
eyebrow

eye

nose

mouth

teeth

tongue

neck

bowl

mana (banana)

beer (blame Rich for that one)

Robert (her cousin)
wall

door

uh-oh

ow

tree

bubble
wah-ree (water)

flah-ree (flower)

She makes animal sounds for pig, cat, and horse. She also will pinch her nose and say "tinky". These are all in addition to the words listed in a previous post, Vocab 015.

Happy Anniversaries!

Happy 1 Year Anniversary, Ben & Judith! (July 15)

Happy 1 Year Anniversary, Brian & Jess! (July 21)


Congratulations! We love you guys, and pray for many more years of marriage.

Cute in Crocs

Anniversary Weekend

This picture of my nephew Sullivan doesn’t have much to do with this post, but it was so cute, I wanted to post it anyway.




















This past weekend we traveled to Greenville to visit Sarah & Scott, as well as my newly-married sister and brother-in-law, Lisa & Stephen. (See Doing the Charleston post below.) We had loads of fun on Friday night eating steak and shrimp, accompanied by Casillero del Diablo Merlot. After dinner we played a French card game, Mille Bornes, which was really fun to learn and play. For lunch on Saturday we headed over to Lisa & Stephen’s, got the tour of their new apartment, ate some homemade fried rice (compliments of Stephen), and played more card games. Saturday evening, Rich and I had the opportunity to go out by ourselves for our 3 year anniversary while Scott & Sarah watched Anna Ruth for us. We walked around downtown Greenville to work up an appetite just in time to arrive at Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria. Rich loves that place mainly for the great selection of beers on tap (which has recently gotten even better since the alcohol cap in South Carolina has been lifted), but also for the yummy pizza. We got white pizza, and it did not disappoint. After finishing our meal, we walked over to Coffee Underground where we got some very sweet milkshakes and enjoyed the ambience of the underground. When we got home, we stayed up much too late watching The Office Season 1, while enjoying more good beers and a wide array of chocolates. We were glad to be able to go to Greenville, since we won’t have many more half-day Fridays to facilitate making the weekend trip now that Rich is changing jobs.

Submissive to Scripture

Here's a great little article by Doug Wilson about how we ought to approach the God-breathed Word.

4th of July in Birmingham

Last night we went to see the local fireworks here in Birmingham. They were shot off above the Vulcan. An elementary school nearby has a field in front where many of the locals sit to see the show. We were told to arrive early to get a parking spot, so we did, and Anna Ruth played on the playground while were waiting for the display to begin. She tried out a curvy slide, but had some problems with her shoes catching on the side and turning her backwards.

She still had fun, though. The fireworks began around 9PM, and were better than we expected. We've been spoiled by the great fireworks displays in Charleston, so we were pretty sure the ones here would be duds. But to our surprise, they had some big ones, and even some fireworks that were smiley faces, which I had never seen before. (Though, I didn't catch those on video.) Anna Ruth enjoyed them for a bit, but her short attention span became a challenge after only a couple minutes. She wanted to run around and interact with all the kids, but we wanted to watch the rest of the fireworks. Oh well, such is life with an active toddler! Well, here is a short video of some of the fireworks that I was able to capture while Anna Ruth wasn't too crazy. And if you're wondering what the UFO in the middle of the screen is, that's a street light that was coming on and off throughout the entire show.

Feminism in the PCA

One of the most serious problems in the PCA right now is the encroachment of egalitarianism. A Denver, Colorado church has hired a female Covenant seminary grad as "Minister of Church Life" (their own words). The obvious problems with this action are claimed to have been dealt with in a position paper done oby the church there. The pastor there claims that this is merely a semantic issue, not to be blown out of proportion or confused with anything bad, which, of course, they wouldn't do. Any PCA elder or member ought to be concerned with this issue. At least two pastors in the PCA have already dealt with this in writing, actually dealing head-on with the position paper that supposedly will clear the air, showing that it, in fact, reveals the problem to be as deep as is first supposed. Because the paper is fairly long, and others have already done good work in dealing with it, I will link to these discussions. The first deals with the paper directly, while the second is not as direct. Please read these.