Baseball is here!

My world heaves a collective sigh of joy as the off-season offically ends and pitchers and catchers report to their respective Spring Training Camps.

But before I write my obligatory pre-season analysis of all things M-E-T-S, I want to start this season off on the right foot and point out a great article that my friend Luke has posted on his blog. The article is written by one of my professors at Westminster who is an avid (probably an understatement) Yankee fan. While I cannot agree with his choice of teams, his sentiments hit me in all the right places.

The article is not very long, so please take a minute and check it out. Regardless of what you are a fan of, I think you will find this perspective refreshing and good.

What if..... "The Shining"

Here is one for you movie buffs.

A post-production house organized a competition where assistant editors ‘re-cut’ trailers for famous movies to try and make them seem like different movies . . . . this is the one that won:

Shining (Quicktime file)


HT - The Tattered Coat

Christian Perspective on the Muslim Riots

I have linked here to a brief response to the world wide Muslim outrage over the Danish cartoons by John Piper. It's great stuff and a must read for all Christians, and everyone else too, detailing the great difference between Islam and Christianity.

(Hat Tip to Luke)

Gregology Redux: Blogging Integrity

I was looking through my archives for a post and came across this gem. It interests me because of the recent changes I have made and the standard I tried to hold myself to the last year or so. I guess it is good to see that I am at least consistent in my expectations of myself, even if I rarely deliver the goods.


Focused Blather (Blogging Integrity)

The New Digs

Yes, if you have been here before you can clearly see that I am making some changes. There are several reasons for this, the ones that come to mind quickest are:

1) I thought "Taming the Tongue" was a good name for my blog, and in retrospect, it was part of why I started blogging in the first place. But let's face it, I have hardly tamed much of anything in the last year or so.

2) My tag line was "Out of the Abundance of the Heart the Mouth Speaks" - and again, let's face it - rarely does the overflow of my heart ever make it onto these virtual pages. It's mostly banal trappings of hardly cogent thought that usually come to me on a whim... I never post about personal things, so my heart is pretty much left out. It's false advertising.

3) I kept getting visitors that were searching google for Bible Studies on taming the Tongue ala James 3 - and as much as I enjoy the extra traffic, it's just not fair to mislead those people into coming here and finding the nothing remotely close to what they are looking for.

That's basically it. I know I didn't have to change it, but I felt the need to shake things up a bit. Besides, the new name is more true to what this blog and most other blogs are all about: the inquenchable need for us to make others suffer through our mind vomit. Ultimately it's really all about ourselves. To quote Carl Trueman we have all "confused the right to speak with the right to be heard". I am not above this.

So from now on it's "Gregology" - a name I would have never come up with on my own, but a friend at WTS always refers to me by this moniker. I thought it was fitting for what this is really all about. It also lowers the standards of expectation for those visiting who do not know me and are drawn in by my former false advertising.

I'm up for other suggestions though, so feel free to leave some.

I also started looking at some different templates... but I don't think I'm ready for that kind of commitment.

Love Your Unborn Neighbor

I don't know if it is because of the recent "dignity of human life" Sunday, or because of the recent installation of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court, and the fear that this has stirred up among those sympathetic to the "right to choose" movement - but for whatever reason, I have found myself in several discussions regarding Abortion lately.

The discussions have not really centered on whether or not abortion is morally right or wrong persay, but more on whether the consequences of making abortion illegal will be acceptable to those who are against abortion, and whether those consequences will be viewed the same way as conservatives view the abortion issue itself.

Some of the consequences that are often brought up are:

• Hundreds of women who cannot get legal abortions will find ways to get them anyway, endangering their own lives in the process and often dying trying to have illegal abortions.
• The unwanted children that are born into the world will be forced into a system that is already overburdened and cannot help those in it now. A system that produces far more failures than successes, and often causes far more trauma than it helps.
• The ultimate rise in crime, poverty and homelessness that will be the result of inadequately raised children and overburdened families. (note the drastic drop in crime rate in our country beginning 18 years after RvW was instituted)

All of these issues are legitimate concerns, especially those dealing with the health of women, especially those who are pregnant due to rape and incest.

However, this sermon by John Piper helps to illustrate that this is not a one or the other issue.

There is not a single person, at least I hope, who feels that abortion should be stopped and as a result we should allow women to die in back alley clinics. I think the main issue for those who believe in the Sanctity of Life is that they believe ALL life is sacred, and that the unborn child should receive as much concern as the women whose health is at risk, and certainly as much concern as those women who use abortion as birth control.

As Piper's sermon points out from the parable of the good Samaritan, we are to treat all these people with compassion, godly compassion, and that all parties deserve it equally. The mother and the child, both before and after birth. The ideal would be that everyone would be cared for; the child with adequate foster care; the mothers with adequate counseling, etc. etc..

But, of course, these things get messy because we live in a sinful world where nothing works out how it should and all the best laid plans usually end up hurting someone somewhere along the line. Doing the right thing in one area can often produce wrong things elsewhere, especially in a broken world. But that messiness is not a free pass or an excuse to disobey God and take the easy or convenient way out. Ending abortion may have many negative side effects in our society, but that is not justification to continue to turn a blind eye to blatant sin.

Just as ending slavery caused a huge influx to the north which caused economic backlash, homelessness, poverty and the death of many freed slaves, it would seem foolish looking back to say that those side effects were bad enough to continue the moral aberration that slavery was. And as bad as slavery is, I don't think it can be compared to the world wide genocide that takes place through abortions. As Piper points out, there have been over 46 million abortions in our country since Roe Vs Wade was upheld - but that same number of abortions occurs every year on a global scale. 46 million a year world-wide.

So, no. Ending legalized abortion would not be clean. Ending legalized abortion does not change the hearts and minds of fathers who sexually abuse their daughters, or men and women and teens who make bad sexual decisions, or rapists, or rape victims. Ending abortion probably won't change the way people think or act, the way they behave sexually, or the choices they make in the heat of the moment. But it will do one thing. It will end the murder of millions of real live human beings, and it will be pleasing to God.

But it doesn't end there. Because the aftermath WILL be messy. And the WILL be lots of negative side effects in our society - but the Gospel that says these babies should live is the very same gospel that says that they should be cared for, that their mothers, willing or otherwise, should also be cared for in all the ways appropriate to their situations. And my friends, this is not the job of the government - it is the job of the church.

"Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise."

I obviously have not said everything there is to say on the issue, but I encourage you to read Piper's sermon for some reasoning on why abortion is wrong and how we should approaching it. Of course, that is not exhaustive either.