Buzzard BlogGospel. Culture. Life. → in the West

Tim Keller, Mental Health

“Some say that calling yourself a ’sinner’ is emotionally unhealthy. Oh, no. It is emotionally unhealthy not to call yourself a sinner…To be able to say ‘I am capable of terrible things, but I am unconditionally loved,’ is the epitome of mental health. It is the gospel that gives us that. The gospel gives us the freedom to admit who we are when the information comes, to see where we need to change, to know ourselves.”

-Tim Keller, Did He Die for You?, Journal of Biblical Counseling, Spring 2007

Text & Context

I’m signed up for the Text & Context Conference in Seattle this February. I’ll be connecting with a few friends while I’m there. Anyone else going to the conference?

On Vacation: Kauai for $130

Friends, tomorrow my family and I fly out to Kauai for a week of vacation. Through the recent, generous timeshare gift from my wife’s step dad and the generous air mile gift from a friend, we’ve been given a free vacation. We’ll spend $130 for a rental car and I guess we’ll have to eat too, but otherwise it should be a cheap and wonderful vacation on the island where my wife and I spent our honeymoon in 2003.

Needless to say, I’ll be surfing not blogging this next week. Buzzard Blog is officially on vacation. See you in a week.

U.S. Abortions Drop to Lowest Level Since 1976

From today’s Washington Post:

The number of abortions performed in the United States dropped to 1.2 million in 2005 — the lowest level since 1976, according to a new report.

…The total number of abortions among women ages 15 to 44 declined from 1.3 million in 2000 to 1.2 million in 2005, an 8 percent drop that continued a trend that began in 1990, when the number of abortions peaked at more than 1.6 million, the survey found. The last time the number of abortions was that low was 1976, when slightly fewer than 1.2 million abortions were performed.

That’s great news! Praise God.

But, the bad news:

Suzanne T. Poppema of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health
speculated that wider availability of the morning-after pill also might
be playing a role.

I would like to say that it’s at least partially due to increased
availability of emergency contraception, which is a really good
addition to reproductive health care in this country," she said. The
emergency contraceptive known as Plan B, a high dose of standard birth
control pills, can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of
unprotected sex.

…the long decline in the number of abortion providers appears to be
stabilizing, partly a result of the availability of the French abortion
pill RU-486, the report found, because some physicians who do not
perform surgical abortions provide it to their patients.

John Piper, Advice to Pastors: How to Help Your People Be More Satisfied in God

Here’s some extremely helpful advice that John Piper gave to pastors in February 1996:

1. Love God will all your heart and soul and mind and strength in
   the presence of other people. It is contagious.
2. Love other people from the power of God’s grace. That is, show
   them the beauty of Christ through his love for them in the way you
   love them.
3. Tell stories about those who were ravished by the beauty and
   glory of God. It seems that true narratives of peoples’ experience
   with the worth of God are very awakening.
4. Describe God’s value—his treasure—in lavish
   terms.
5. Teach the people how to pray for the transformation of their
   own hearts, that is, teach them how to pray with the psalmists,
   "Incline my heart to Thy testimonies and not to getting gain."
6. Model for the people extended meditation and reflection on the
   word of God. Most people do not know how to take a word or phrase
   or sentence of scripture, commit it to memory and roll it over
   again and again in their mind and look at it from different sides
   and ask many questions about it and apply it to different aspects
   of their life and think of analogies of it in their mind. But it’s
   precisely in this cogitating that the juices in the fruit begin to
   flow down and awaken the taste buds of the soul.
7. Show the people how to find specific, particular promises in
   the Bible to savor. When Paul says in Romans 15:13, "May the God of
   hope fill you with joy and peace in believing . . .", he is
   pointing out that joy and peace rise up as we trust in God’s
   precious and very great promises. So people need to do more
   specific searching for promises and then hold them in their minds
   and dwell on them as they go through the day.
8. Pray for your people that their hearts would be softened and
   made tender and more susceptible to the beauty of Christ.
9. Help your people to turn off the television. Few things in our
   culture are more spiritually numbing than the television. Even the
   so-called "good" shows are by and large banal and low-minded and
   anything but cultivating of a rich, deep capacity to enjoy God. And
   when you add to that the barrage of suggestive advertisements that
   accompany virtually every program, I do not wonder why so many of
   our professing Christians are spiritually incapable of experiencing
   high thoughts and deep emotions.
10. Point the people to God-centered biography. The struggles and
    the triumphs of Christians who have known the glory and greatness
    of God are very engaging and awakening.
11. Show the people how to transpose their joys in natural things
    into joy in God. Here’s what I mean. Even the most joyless person
    seems to have one or two things in their lives that make them
    happy. It might be their family. It might be the night sky in the
    north woods. It might be fishing. Help them to make a
    transposition, that is, to take the line of music called "joy" in
    their soul and transpose it up from the natural to the supernatural
    by an act of faith in God as the one who created the family or the
    night sky or the fishing. Help them see that all the things that
    are truly delightful in this world, which awaken pleasures in their
    hearts, are gifts of God and are reflections of his character and
    his goodness. If they are capable of delighting in natural things,
    then by the grace of the Holy Spirit they may be capable of
    transposing those very joys into a higher key and thus discovering
    joy in God.
12. Call the people for confession and renunciation of plaguing
    sins that make them feel inauthentic and block true affection for
    God.
13. Teach them about the necessity and value of suffering in the
    Christian life and how it is not worth comparing to the glory to be
    revealed.

Those are some of the things that might help your people.

What I find is that the most helpful things are simply to attend
to your own soul and what it is that kindles delight for God in you
and then share that with others.

Blessings on you as you perform the high task of mid-wifery in
bringing joy in God to birth in your congregation.

Preachers: Believe the Bible & Watch a DVD

"Read the Bible and believe it, then preach for change, no turning back, no compromise. Sit still and watch a DVD movie once in a while and eat a little popcorn. ‘Thus saith the Lord’ is a heavy responsibility for any mortal. It is better to stay on good speaking terms with God than to feel like the universe rides on every sentence of your sermon." -Calvin Miller

Eric W. Gritsch, The Wit of Martin Luther

Eric W. Gritsch’s little book, The Wit of Martin Luther, is a fun, interesting, tersely (and sometimes oddly) written account of the central role humor played in Martin Luther’s life. Drawing upon numerous quotations and sources, Gritsch argues that it was Luther’s humor and wit that kept the busy, burdened reformer from taking himself too seriously and loosing sight of the joy of the gospel.

Gritsch highlights the role humor played in Luther’s marriage, in his pastoral relationships, in his interpretation of Scripture, and in his dealings with death. Gritsch writes, "There is overwhelming evidence from Luther’s life and work to prove that for him at least, humor, next to music, was the most effective way to endure the trials of…life. In his way of thinking and being, smiling, laughing, and even mocking become the divinely inspired means of spiritual survival. Knowing of the happy end at the Last Day, Luther could remain cheerful in anticipating it."

Praise God for the example of Luther, for the reminder to trust God, laugh, and be of good cheer. Are you taking yourself too seriously? Have you forgotten John 16:33–"be of good cheer; I have overcome the world"–? If so, you might especially benefit from reading Gritsch’s 115 short pages on Luther’s healing humor.

Below are a few Luther quotations from the book. Be warned, however, much of Luther’s humor is rather colorful. Actually, much of his humor reads like junior high humor.

"I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away.
When he tempts me with silly sins I say, ‘Devil, yesterday I broke wind
too. Have you written it down on your list?’"

Shortly before his death, Luther said to his wife Katie: "I’m like a ripe stool and the world’s like a gigantic anus, and we’re about to let go of each other."

"Tomorrow I have to lecture on the drunkenness of Noah [Gen. 9:20-27], so I should drink enough this evening to be able to talk about that wickedness as one who knows by experience."

While away on a trip, Luther joked about his physical ailments in a letter to Katie: "I am drinking beer from Namburg which tastes to me almost like the beer from Mansfeld which you praised to me. It agrees with me well and gives me about three bowel movements in three hours in the morning."

Nicholas Carr: Computers, Culture, & The Future

Wired magazine recently interviewed Nicholas Carr ("high tech’s Captain Buzzkill — the go-to guy for bad news…former executive editor of Harvard Business Review…") about his new book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google,
and why he finds the
future of computing so scary. Here’s some excerpts from the interview that I found interesting regarding computers, culture, and the future:

Wired: IBM founder Thomas J. Watson is quoted — possibly misquoted — as saying the world needs only five computers. Is it true?

Carr: The World Wide Web is becoming one vast, programmable machine. As NYU’s Clay Shirky likes to say, Watson was off by four.

Wired: When does the big switch from the desktop to the data cloud happen?

Carr: Most people are already there. Young people in
particular spend way more time using so-called cloud apps — MySpace,
Flickr, Gmail — than running old-fashioned programs on their hard
drives. What’s amazing is that this shift from private to public
software has happened without us even noticing it.

Wired: What happened to the Web undermining institutions and empowering individuals?

Carr: Computers are technologies of liberation, but
they’re also technologies of control. It’s great that everyone is
empowered to write blogs, upload videos to YouTube, and promote
themselves on Facebook. But as systems become more centralized — as
personal data becomes more exposed and data-mining software grows in
sophistication — the interests of control will gain the upper hand. If
you’re looking to monitor and manipulate people, you couldn’t design a
better machine.

Wired: So it’s Google über alles?

Carr: Yeah. Welcome to Google Earth. A bunch of bright
computer scientists and AI experts in Silicon Valley are not only
rewiring our computers — they’re dictating the future terms of our
culture. It’s terrifying.

2008 Mavericks Surf Contest Is On

 

From the Mavericks Surf website:

The 2008 Mavericks Surf Contest® is officially ON. Jeff Clark has made the call, and 24 of the world’s best surfers are on
their way. Contest begins at 8am tomorrow. Best ways to watch? The live webcast on MySpace.com, or our big party at AT&T Park. Good luck & safe surfing to all our Invitees.

I live only 25 minutes away from Mavericks. But, because Mavericks breaks a good bit off shore, rather than driving to Mavericks and watching the contest from the beach, I plan to watch the contest via the live webcast (if you’re not familiar with Mavericks, the world’s greatest big wave surf spot, click here). Here’s more details about the webcast:

2008 MAVERICKS SURF CONTEST®


FREE LIVE WEBCAST

Brought to You in Partnership with Our Friends at MySpace.com

Mavericks is proud to be teaming up with MySpace.com to
bring surf fans around the world one of the best deals in the all of
sports – 7+ hours of live, world-class big wave surfing action
delivered right to your computer –
FOR FREE
.

On Contest Day, just head to

www.myspace.com/maverickssurf

, pull up a chair, and enjoy the entire 2008 Mavericks Surf Contest
– from opening gun to the final Award Ceremony. Webcast highlights
include:

• The best view in town – Your viewing experience on Contest Day will be unrivaled. Views from the beach won’t even come close.
• Amazing camera angles – 10 different camera positions will catch the live action on Contest Day, including Mavericks’ first ever JetSki Cam.
• Professional analysis and commentary – By pros who really know the big wave surfing game, and can help you appreciate the action as it happens.
• Live interviews – Throughout Contest Day, with surfing legends, special guests, and the Contest Invitees themselves.
• Full coverage — Of the beach scene, the Surfer’s
  Tent, the break, the surfing, the surfers, the Mavericks Band Stage
  (with 9 live bands throughout the day) and even the Award Ceremony.

The Mavericks/MySpace Free Contest Webcast is a sweet deal, whether
you live in South Africa or Santa Cruz. Leave the car in the garage
this year and grab a front row seat for the Big Show. It doesn’t get
much better than this.

2008 New Attitude Conference

Are you thinking about attending this year’s New Attitude conference? I am too, if I can swing it along with other conferences (Text & Context, Dwell Conference) I’m hoping to attend in 2008.

Watch the video to see Eric Simmons and Josh Harris discuss this year’s conference.