Bishop Wrong’s Clarified Classification System

Bishop Wrong, famous for his list of the top 50 blogs and the most complete list of biblioblogs is adding a new feature to his list so that it now includes classification by level of activity.

The list of (currently) 141 biblioblogs can be a bit daunting, so in order to identify which ones are more active than others, I have color-coded all of the biblioblogs as follows:

Red Hot, Regular, Rare, Dying

This has the added advantage of making the list very, very pretty.

Yes indeed, although I wish that he had chosen a different color for dying, like some sort of rancid greenish yellow decomposing corpse shade.  Still, it’s very useful as it allows the surfer to ignore the rarely posting and dying safely (since their content is stale, like a corpse).

Next, perhaps the good Bishop will classify the biblioblogs by the handsomeness of their authors.  Curse you, Phil Harland, we all know you’ll be at the top of the list, and bless you Chris Tilling… you know where you’ll be…

[I know I didn't include the ladies- but as all you married guys know, it's safer not to make comments about the attractiveness of the females.  Anyway, we all know they would be at the top of the list so it goes without saying.]

In Case You Missed It…

National Geographic is airing, again, ‘Herod’s Lost Tomb‘ on Sunday the 23rd at 9 PM.

Thanksgiving Divorce

I know, it’s a bit, well, ok you’ll see… but I think it’s hilarious: [with thanks to William for it]

A man in Phoenix calls his son in New York two days before Thanksgiving and says,”I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough”.

“Pop, what are you talking about?” the son screams.

We can’t stand the sight of each other any longer,” the father says. “We’re sick of each other, and I’m sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her.”

Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. “Like heck they’re getting divorced,” she shouts, “I’ll take care of this,”

She calls Phoenix immediately, and screams at her father, “You are NOT getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?” and hangs up.

The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. “Okay,” he says, “they’re coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way.”

Stupid Criminal Story

Sheriff’s deputies in Lakeland, Fla., tracked down a man charged with stealing the Nov. 16 offering from a Southern Baptist church with help from a visitor card he had filled out the previous Sunday. He had given the church his first name and his mother’s address. And the church treasurer from whom he allegedly grabbed the money just happens to be the county sherriff’s stepmother. Harold Williams, 28, was arrested Nov. 17 on charges of robbery by snatching, a felony punishable by up to three years in prison, and disrupting a religious assembly, a misdemeanor. Williams is accused of grabbing a portion of the offerings collected from about 70 worshippers at Crystal Lake Baptist Church from the church treasurer, then running away.

And that, my friends, is why it’s a bad idea to fill out those visitor cards when you’re a criminal visiting a church with plans to rob it.

‘Israel’s only dependable natural resource is irony’

So opines Ha’aretz today while writing concerning the ‘Museum of Tolerance’ being constructed atop, of all places, a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.  Partially, it notes

…  when the Wiesenthal center chose the Mamilla cemetery site from a range of locations that were offered, it was wrong. And late last month, when Israel’s Supreme Court gave the project the green light, and Rabbi Hier responded that “moderation and tolerance have prevailed,” he was dead wrong. …  In 2006, less than two years after Rabbi Hier, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, architect Frank Gehry and much of the Israeli cabinet attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the museum, construction was abruptly – and correctly – halted: Workers excavating the site had struck bones. At that point, the Wiesenthal center, mindful of its stated mission, should have immediately begun a search for an alternative site. Instead, it spent a fortune in legal fees fighting a protracted court battle in which, in a very real sense, everyone came out the loser. After all, this is the same organization that labored for 15 long years, in the words of Wiesenthal center associate dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper, to help “galvanize world opinion to force the removal of a Carmelite convent from the grounds of Auschwitz.” Why had the center worked so hard and for so long to win the removal of a Catholic convent built there? “Auschwitz is the largest Jewish cemetery – the single largest unmarked human graveyard – in history,” Cooper noted in 2005. “It deserves universal respect.”

Rabbi Cooper was right: A burial ground of one faith must be respected by people of all religions, even if the graves are unmarked. So it was for Jewish graves in Auschwitz. So it was last year, in Vilnius, where Jews protested vociferously when officials granted permits for apartments to be built on top of an area believed to be part of Lithuania’s largest Jewish cemetery. So it was with Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem: Jews were justifiably outraged when they learned that during Jordanian rule in that area, construction on and around the cemetery destroyed large numbers of Jewish graves. And respect for another faith should certainly be the rule in the case of a site said to have been Jerusalem’s main Muslim cemetery until 1948.

This points out the irony of Jerusalem: what’s good for Jews is good and what’s good for others isn’t of concern.  Do read the whole.

Sad, and Sick

A Florida teenager who used a webcam to live-stream his suicide Wednesday was reportedly encouraged by other people on the Web site, authorities told ABCNews.com. “People were egging him on and saying things like ‘go ahead and do it, faggot,’ said Wendy Crane, an investigator at the Broward County Medical Examiner’s office. Abraham Biggs, 19, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., had been blogging on an online body-building message board and had linked to his page on Justin.tv, a live video streaming Web site, where the camera rolled as he overdosed on prescription pills, according to Crane.

The boy’s suicide is sad; the fact that people encouraged him to do it is sick; and the fact that anyone watched is the saddest and sickest thing of all.  People really are depraved.

What I Miss Most When I Miss the SBL Annual Meeting

1- The Annual Copenhagen/ Sheffield Dinner.

2- The book hall.

3- The reception for Sheffield – Phoenix Publishers.

4- Philip, Keith, James, Chris, and Niels Peter.

To borrow a phrase from our Jewish brethren- ‘Next year in Jerusalem New Orleans.’

Preachers, Publicity Stunts, Sex, and Theological Ineptitude

By now everyone in the world has heard of the ‘preacher’ who challenged his congregation to have sex every day for a week.  There are a number of issues here and I want to address them all briefly.

1- Sex talk as a publicity stunt may sell and garner publicity, but it has nothing to do with the task of the preacher to proclaim the Gospel.  It is nothing but a grab for the spotlight.

2- The biblical injunction upon which the ‘preacher’ based his call to sex for a week – Hebrews’ ‘let the marriage bed be undefiled’ has nothing at all to do with performance and everything to do with fidelity.  Further, Paul’s Corinthian remark that married persons belong to one another cannot be used to assert sexual privilege and dominance.  Such a reading twists Paul’s message into obscurity.  The text, in fact, speaks of married persons respecting one another and respect includes consideration for the needs of the other.  It is only theological ineptitude which allows a ‘preacher’, or anyone else, to substitute a 7 day sex spree for honest and authentic commitment.

3- Focusing on sex in marriage, as the ‘preacher’ does, devalues both sex and relationship.  Marriage is NOT all about sex, in spite of the perverted perceptions of our over-sexed western culture.  That the ‘preacher’ has made it the centerpoint of marital bliss is dishonest and unbiblical.  Which takes me to my final, and most important, point:

4- Aside from the passages twisted to suit his own views, the ‘preacher’ has no biblical injunction and therefore no pastoral or theological authority to ‘challenge’ his congregation to do something like have sex for 7 straight days (a thing which, it must be pointed out, he doesn’t fulfill himself).    Sex in marriage is a matter of Adiaphora.  To exalt it to preeminence is heresy (as is the exaltation of any marginal issue to a central position).

The ‘preacher’ may have gained a bit of public notice, but theologically speaking what has he accomplished?  He has played into society’s hands, played the sex card, and acheived absolutely nothing of meaning, value, or use.

More Pastoral Misconduct

There’s a Baptist pastor in Australia who has the dubious distinction of being ‘disowned’ by the Baptist Union of New South Wales for asserting that Jews were going to hell where they would suffer ‘a fate worse than the holocaust’.  The Illawarra Mercury reports

The union’s president, Reverend Norm Nix, yesterday said the Illawarra Community Baptist Church at Farmborough Heights did not fall under his organisation’s banner.  And nor had its pastor, Kevin Harris, undertaken ministerial training with Australian Baptists.  “We love and respect Jewish people, and seek always to maintain good relations with people of other faiths,” Rev Nix said.

Oh Baptists, why must you insist on asserting what only God himself knows; i.e., who will wind up in torment and who will escape?  There’s a significant difference between asserting what we can assert and asserting what we simply cannot.  Do recally, ‘All Israel will be saved’ opined Paul.  The rub, of course, is whether by ‘All Israel’ he meant ‘Israel’ in a biological sense or in a spiritual sense.

In any event, the kid looks pretty young and since he evidently hasn’t undertaken any theological training not much can, or should be expected of him.

The tragedy of course is that his comments simply burn bridges rather than building them (just like the sometimes rabid anti-islamic sentiment in the United States and the anti-Christian sentiment in some Muslim countries does as well).  But that’s not the end of the story.

The controversial outcome of a “bridge building” meeting last Thursday between Pastor Harris and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief Vic Alhadeff has become global news – especially on Jewish websites.  Mr Alhadeff said he was also offended by material he was given by Pastor Harris at the meeting, which included the Star of David with a skull.  Pastor Harris says he didn’t mean to offend and maintains his comments that “all sinners, including me, would deserve hell” had been misconstrued. He told the Mercury reports he had admitted making the remarks were false. “I knew after the meeting we had disagreed. But I love the Jewish people, I stand against anti-Semitism and I abhor the Holocaust,” Pastor Harris said.

I’m not sure if the boy is just foolish or a bit daft- thinking that a Star of David with a skull in it wouldn’t be offensive.  And rude.  But, and here’s the only merit on his behalf, he admitted that he was in error and he clarified his somewhat bumbling theological assertion.  So maybe he’s not such a bad kid after all.  Perhaps as he grows up, he’ll grow up.  One can hope.