A Dad shaped by ....

This caught my eye as:

• a good road to tread with the Lord's help
• three great requests to make of the Lord
• and a deeply helpful resolution to take before the Lord in parenting. 

I have asked three things of Jesus for each daughter: that she would love him, that she would love her family, and that she would love the church. So far, it would seem Jesus has honored my requests.

This has been my strategy: I will be a man, a husband, and a dad shaped by repentance rather than religion.

What Dave Bruskas has learned about raising daughters can be found here

Jesus and Rugby?

What do you see when you look into the sky?

When twentieth-century people step outside and look at the sky, they see a huge atomic furnace burning hydrogen during the day, and a small planetoid reflecting the light of the sun at night. They also see other atomic furnaces that appear very small because they are far away.

When twentieth-century people step back inside their homes and pick up the latest coffee table book of astronomy, they see color-enhanced photographs of distant galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, and binary starts. They see speculative drawings of quasars, neutron starts, and black holes. 

p 53 Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World


We'll be looking at the stars (so to speak) tomorrow at 4pm as we continue in Genesis 1 (Genesis 1:14-19) ! 

MP3's of NWC 2010 - The Complete Woman

MP3's (FREE!) of the 2010 Northern Women's Convention are now available (here and here). 


Enjoy!

Martin Luther No 6

Martin Luther's take on the 6th Commandment (The Large Catechism):

We have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government, that is, the divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here now we go forth from our house among our neighbors to learn how we should live with one another, every one himself toward his neighbor. Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment nor is the power to kill, which they have taken away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them to death. Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation to any one else, and not to the government. 

Now this commandment is easy enough and has been often treated, because we hear it annually in the Gospel of St. Matthew, 5, 21 ff., where Christ Himself explains and sums it up, namely, that we must not kill neither with hand, heart, mouth, signs, gestures, help, nor counsel. Therefore it is here forbidden to every one to be angry, except those (as we said) who are in the place of God, that is, parents and the government. For it is proper for God and for every one who is in a divine estate to be angry, to reprove and punish, namely, on account of those very persons who transgress this and the other commandments. 

But the cause and need of this commandment is that God well knows that the world is evil, and that this life has much unhappiness; therefore He has placed this and the other commandments between the good and the evil. Now, as there are many assaults upon all commandments, so it happens also in this commandment that we must live among many people who do us harm, so that we have cause to be hostile to them. 

As when your neighbor sees that you have a better house and home [a larger family and more fertile fields], greater possessions and fortune from God than he, he is sulky, envies you, and speaks no good of you. Thus by the devil's incitement you will get many enemies who cannot bear to see you have any good, either bodily or spiritual. When we see such people, our hearts, in turn, would rage and bleed and take vengeance. Then there arise cursing and blows, from which follow finally misery and murder. Here, now, God like a kind father steps in ahead of Us, interposes and wishes to have the quarrel settled, that no misfortune come of it, nor one destroy another. And briefly He would hereby protect, set free, and keep in peace every one against the crime and violence of every one else; and would have this commandment placed as a wall, fortress, and refuge about our neighbor, that we do him no hurt nor harm in his body. 

Thus this commandment aims at this, that no one offend his neighbor on account of any evil deed, even though he have fully deserved it. For where murder is forbidden, all cause also is forbidden whence murder may originate. For many a one, although he does not kill, yet curses and utters a wish, which would stop a person from running far if it were to strike him in the neck [makes imprecations, which if fulfilled with respect to any one, he would not live long]. Now since this inheres in every one by nature and it is a common practice that no one is willing to suffer at the hands of another, God wishes to remove the root and source by which the heart is embittered against our neighbor, and to accustom us ever to keep in view this commandment, always to contemplate ourselves in it as in a mirror, to regard the will of God, and with hearty confidence and invocation of His name to commit to Him the wrong which we suffer. Thus we shall suffer our enemies to rage and be angry, doing what they can, and we learn to calm our wrath, and to have a patient, gentle heart, especially toward those who give us cause to be angry, that is, our enemies.  

Therefore the entire sum of what it means not to kill is to be impressed most explicitly upon the simple-minded. In the first place that we harm no one, first, with our hand or by deed. Then, that we do not employ our tongue to instigate or counsel thereto. Further, that we neither use nor assent to any kind of means or methods whereby any one may be injured. And finally, that the heart be not ill disposed toward any one, nor from anger and hatred wish him ill, so that body and soul may be innocent in regard to every one, but especially those who wish you evil or inflict such upon you. For to do evil to one who wishes and does you good is not human, but diabolical. 

Secondly, under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto for you have withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been saved.

Therefore God also rightly calls all those murderers who do not afford counsel and help in distress and danger of body and life, and will pass a most terrible sentence upon them in the last day, as Christ Himself has announced when He shall say, Matt.25, 42f.: I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick and in prison and ye visited Me not. That is: You would have suffered Me and Mine to die of hunger thirst, and cold, would have suffered the wild beasts to tear us to pieces, or left us to rot in prison or perish in distress. What else is that but to reproach them as murderers and bloodhounds? For although you have not actually done all this, you have nevertheless, so far as you were concerned, suffered him to pine and perish in misfortune. It is just as if I saw some one navigating and laboring in deep water [and struggling against adverse winds] or one fallen into fire, and could extend to him the hand to pull him out and save him, and yet refused to do it. What else would I appear, even in the eyes of the world, than as a murderer and a criminal? 

Therefore it is God's ultimate purpose that we suffer harm to befall no man, but show him all good and love; and, as we have said it is specially directed toward those who are our enemies. For to do good to our friends is but an ordinary heathen virtue as Christ says Matt: 5, 46. Here we have again the Word of God whereby He would encourage and urge us to true noble and sublime works, as gentleness patience, and, in short, love and kindness to our enemies, and would ever remind us to reflect upon the First Commandment, that He is our God, that is, that He will help, assist, and protect us, in order that He may thus quench the desire of revenge in us.  

This we ought to practice and inculcate and we would have our hands full doing good works. But this would not be preaching for monks; it would greatly detract from the religious estate, and infringe upon the sanctity of Carthusians, and would even be regarded as forbidding good works and clearing the convents. For in this wise the ordinary state of Christians would be considered just as worthy, and even worthier, and everybody would see how they mock and delude the world with a false, hypocritical show of holiness, because they have given this and other commandments to the winds, and have esteemed them unnecessary, as though they were not commandments but mere counsels, and have at the same time shamelessly proclaimed and boasted their hypocritical estate and works as the most perfect life, in order that they might lead a pleasant, easy life, without the cross and without patience, for which reason, too, they have resorted to the cloisters, so that they might not be obliged to suffer any wrong from any one or to do him any good. But know now that these are the true, holy, and godly works, in which, with all the angels He rejoices, in comparison with which all human holiness is but stench and filth, and besides, deserves nothing but wrath and damnation.

The Un-nintendoed Effect

Video games are natural teachers. Children find them highly motivating: by virtue of their interactive nature; children are actively engaged with them; they provide repeated practice; and they include rewards for skillful play. These facts make it likely that video games could have large effects, some of which are intended by game designers, and some of which may not be intended. (quote from here) 

In the United States: 
Children aged 2-5 years old play just under 30 minutes of computer games a day. 210 minutes a week. 31/2 hours a week.
Children aged 5-18 play around 13 hours of computer games a week. 
THIS IS ON TOP OF the rough figure of an average of 24 hours of TV a week. 


I find it hard to even outline the impact this must be having on a generation of young people - their mental, emotional and physical development. And we must not allow our reflection to just be on the individual (though of course that matters enormously). Families and communities and nations must be being greatly affected by this. 


A good thing that the UK is so different to the US. A good thing that UK parents don't abdicate in this way.
A good thing that UK Christian parents are so distinctive in how they direct their children's viewing and gaming.


Don't you think? 

Modern slavery

Look after the pennies and ....



THIS is the scary thought: Proverbs 22:7 

Can the body make us sin?

Northern Women's Convention 2010 - the Complete Woman

A week or so ago I drove a minibus up to the Northern Women's Convention. While I dropped the ladies off to go and spend some time with Jane introducing Evie to her Grandparents I left my camera in the hands of the 'Grace Women' with instructions to have a good time and to produce a video diary while doing it. They had a great great day and this is the 'diary':  

Every expense was spared in the making of this short film.
No Doughnuts or Kit-Kats were harmed during the filming.

Featuring : (some of) the Ladies of Grace Community Church. 

Camera Work and 'starring' : Katie & Bella [who were given NO warning that I wanted them to do this!So a massive well done for producing anything like a 'diary' of the day!]

Editing : blame me. 

Amanda Robbie provides a deeper reflection (!) on the day from a 'West Bromwich' perspective.

Meat Eaters, Made of Meat

Flanders: A song which we call, "The Reluctant Cannibal":

Seated one day at the tom-tom,
I heard a welcome shout from the kitchen:
"COME AND GEEEEEEEEEEET IT!"
Roast leg of insurance salesman!

A chorus of "yum"s ran round the table:
(Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum...)
Except for Junior, who pushed away his shell, Got up from his log, and said:

Swann: "I don't want any part of it!"

Flanders: What? Why not?

Swann: I don't eat people.
Flanders: Hey?
Swann: I won't eat people.
Flanders: Huh?
Swann: I don't eat people.
Flanders: I must be going deaf!
Swann: Eating people is wrong.
Flanders: It's wrong?

Swann: Don't eat people.
Flanders: Have you gone clean out of your mind?
Swann: I won't eat people.
Flanders: What's the matter with the lad?
Swann: Don't eat people.
Flanders: He keeps on repeating.
Both: Eating people is bad.

Flanders: But people have always eaten people,
What else is there to eat?
If the Juju had meant us not to eat people,
He wouldn't have made us of meat!

Swann: Don't eat people.
Flanders: Oh no, not again.
Swann: I won't eat people.
Flanders: All the day long.
Both: Don't eat people.
Flanders: He keeps on repeating.
Both: Eating people is wrong.

Flanders: Well... I... I never heard a more ridiculous idea in all my born days. To think that a son of mine should grow up to be a sissy - me, chief assistant to the assistant chief! I suppose you realise, son, if this was to get around, we might never get self-Government.
Swann: I won't eat people!
Flanders: Have you been talking to one of your mothers again? You're not getting to be one of these cranks who think that eating people is cruel, are you? Seeing the man sitting in the pot and you think he's suffering. Oh, it's not like that at all. Why, he's just had an invigourating chase through the forest, sitting there in the nice warm water with all the carrots and dumplings and things, he's thinking, "Oh, the pleasure and happiness I'm going to give to a heap of people". That man in the pot there, he enjoys it!
Swann: Eating people is wrong!
Flanders: Look son, son, I admire your sincerity. Always be sincere... whether you mean it or not. But you're young, you're young, when you're young you think you can change the whole world overnight, even eating people - I know, I've been young myself. Take it from your old Dad, you've just got to learnt to take the world as it is.
Swann: I won't let another man pass my lips!
Flanders: I know why you say "Don't eat people", because you are a coward, Francis, that's your trouble. Yes, a yellow-livered coward. You wouldn't mind eating people if you weren't afraid of ending up in the pot yourself - how despicable! If you go on like this you're liable to get ME into hot water.

Swann: I won't eat people.
Flanders: That's enough!
Swann: I don't eat people.
Flanders: I don't want to...
Swann: Eating people is wrong!
Flanders: Communist!

Flanders: Going around saying "Don't eat people",
That's the way to make people hate'ya.
We always have eaten people, always will eat people,
You can't change human nature.

Flanders: Now let's try...
Swann: I won't eat people,
I don't eat people,
I won't eat people,
I don't eat people!
Flanders: Must have been someone he ate!
Swann: Eating people is out!

Flanders: I give up, I give up, you used to be a regular anthrophagi. If this crazy idealistic idea of yours was to catch on, I just dunno where we would all be. Just about ruin our entire internal economy. Fortunately, I suppose it's catching on isn't really very likely - why, you might just as well going around saying "Don't fight people", for example...

Swann: Don't fight people? Ha, ha! Don't fight people?! Ha ha ha!
Flanders: There, imagine? There, you see! All part of the same...
Both: (laughing) ... fantastical impossibility!
Flanders: That's the boy!

Both: RIDICULOUS!

What is a Person?

For centuries it was generally accepted that the terms 'person' and 'living human being' were virtually equivalent. But over the last two decades, a number of influential modern philosophers, including Peter Singer, Jonathan Glover and John Harris, have challenged traditional understandings of personhood. As we will see, this has led them to some startling conclusions.

For Peter Singer a person is a being who has a capacity for enjoyable experiences, for interacting with others and for having preferences about continued life. For John Harris a person is any being who is capable of valuing their own life.

Once this kind of definition is accepted, there are a number of logical implications. Firstly it is immediately obvious that in order to be regarded as a person, you must have an advanced level of brain function. In fact you must have a completely developed and normally functioning cerebral cortex. 

Secondly, there must be a significant group of human beings who are non-persons. These include fetuses, newborn babies and infants who lack self awareness, and a large group of children and adults with congenital brain abnormalities, severe brain injury, dementia and major psychiatric illnesses.

Thirdly, there are many non-human beings on the planet who meet the criteria of persons. These include at least chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys and dolphins, but may also include dogs, pigs and many other mammals. In fact it has even been argued that within the foreseeable future some supercomputers may meet the criteria to be regarded as persons.

Those who meet the criteria of persons have moral rights and privileges. They deserve to be protected from those who would injure or kill them. They should be allowed to exercise their own choices or autonomy as much as possible. But the same rights and privileges do not extend to non-persons. Peter Singer puts it like this, 'only a person can want to go on living, or have plans for the future, because only a person can understand the possibility of a future existence for herself or himself. This means that to end the lives of people against their will is different from ending the lives of beings who are not people…killing a person against his or her will is a much more serious wrong than killing a being who is not a person.' In other words killing a chimpanzee is a much greater moral evil than killing a newborn baby or an adult with Alzheimer's disease.

When people respond with incredulity, Singer argues that to make moral distinctions on the basis of species is to be guilty of a new crime, 'speciesism'. Instead we should make moral distinctions on the basis of 'ethically relevant characteristics', such as the ability to choose and value your own life.

Of course there are major logical problems with this kind of definition of personhood. In effect Singer has replaced one form of discrimination with another. Instead of discriminating on the basis of species, he is now arguing that we should discriminate on the grounds of cortical function. In fact if we are into name-calling we could call him a 'corticalist'. But why should corticalism be preferable to speciesism? Of course Singer may wish to argue that cortical functioning is 'ethically relevant' whereas species membership is not. But this is an arbitrary distinction that is hard to defend on entirely logical grounds. Why should the functioning of a 5mm layer of neurones be the central and only moral discriminating feature between beings? On purely logical grounds species membership is a more coherent and fundamental basis for making ethical distinctions between beings. 

  What is a Person? John Wyatt 

Happy Halloween?

There are some sensible thoughts about Halloween here & here.

And here are some more general thoughts about the way we do/should think about our year as Christians. 

Don't put it off

John 'the flea' Dickson gets stuck into New Atheism