Laura Bush Assumes Control...

...of the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, DC. I enjoy the Bush family primarily because they are so good at self-deprecating humor. This is, well, an extreme example, and it is totally hilarious. Even if you cannot stand President Bush, if you still have a sense of humor, you will enjoy this video. Several of the jokes are really outrageous. My heart actually went out to Cedric the Entertainer, who had to follow the First Lady's wonderful performance.

Monkish Reality TV in the UK

Interesting:

Five men, ranging from an atheist in the pornography trade to a former Protestant paramilitary, have found their lives unexpectedly transformed in the latest incarnation of reality television - the monastery.

More Oh Brother! than Big Brother, the five underwent a spiritual makeover by spending 40 days and 40 nights living with Roman Catholic monks in Worth Abbey, West Sussex.

...

The participants, none of whom was a Roman Catholic, shared meals with the monks, worked in the grounds and joined in the daily office, from early morning Matins to Compline. They were also obliged to follow the monks' rules of silence, obedience and humility.

The Abbot of the monastery is said to be"delighted" with the results.

Now THIS is Very Cool

A revolutionary technique reveals long lost Greek and Roman texts:

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri were discovered in an ancient junkyard, thus comfirming the old aphorism about one person's trash. Some of the newly deciphered texts will be published within the next few days.

Modernity and the Church

On the eve of the next Catholic conclave of cardinals, George Will writes:

The challenge confronting the church can be expressed in one word: modernity. The church preaches that freedom is life lived in conformity to God's will as manifested in revelation and interpreted by the church. Modernity teaches that freedom is the sovereignty of the individual's will – personal volition that is spontaneous, unconditioned, inviolable and self-legitimizing.

So what does this mean here in America?

In America, a market-driven society, there is a religion market in which the most successful competitors for congregations are churches with clear doctrinal and strict moral positions. For these churches, the "crisis of Christianity" is congestion in their parking lots.

Interesting. Will's observations about Europe's forthcoming population decline are also worth noting.

[Hat tip: Real Clear Politics]

Sunday Dog Blog

Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in. - Mark Twain

Do you want me to say "cheese"? Originally uploaded by Look at my photos.

Preaching for the First Time

Last Tuesday, I preached my first ever sermon to a small group of classmates in my "Introduction to Preaching" section. The scripture upon which the sermon was based was Matthew 16:13-20:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

In the sermon, I focus on the primacy and immediacy of the question "Who do you say that I am," and the implications of the question for us.

Preaching, my friends, is a daunting experience. When you approach the pulpit for the first time, time starts to crawl by. Despite all of my preparations and rehearsals, the sense of nervousness I felt was intense. And even though it all went well, I had a stomachache after I had finished. Hopefully the physical impact of preaching will become something I get used to over time.

The presentation was videotaped. Upon review, one thing I've learned is this: If you are trying to emphasize a point with a gesture of some kind, you need to make a BIG gesture. If you don't, it looks as if you hardly moved at all.

A copy of the sermon manuscript can be found here.

Technorati Tags: Presbyterian Church USA, PCUSA, Seminary Life, Sermon, Preaching

Sunday Dog Blog

Guarding the fort. "I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world." - Samuel Johnson

flick00080 Originally uploaded by Buttercup Meadow.