Archives for November, 2006
Liberal Convention Blogging
Technorati Tags : Liberal+Party, leadership
Alley
Shot by Dave Blondel for the Freeway and it’s connection to Hamilton.
It is worth the watch and download.
Technorati Tags : Hamilton, Dave+Blondel, Freeway, emerging+church, video
Goodbye Microsoft Office
I have been using Microsoft Word since 5.5 in DOS and 2.0c for Windows 3.1 and today I uninstalled Microsoft Office and moved exclusively to the open source and free OpenOffice 2.0. While I still think Office XP is a superior product, it is too expensive to justify the cost of upgrading. I enjoyed doing some quick and easy publishing with Microsoft Publisher but every time Microsoft upgrades Publisher, Staples and Office Depot stop supporting the older versions and their poorly trained staff has no idea how to open may file formats. Open Offices ability to print to PDF saves me a lot of time and I know that Staples can’t mess it up.
I still have a new version of WordPerfect Office laying around but WordPerfect isn’t that great anymore and I don’t know what Lotus did to WordPro but it has gotten worse than what AmiPro was back in the 90s. I’ll cast my lot with Open Office 2.0 and Google Documents (which does a suprisingly good job)
Update: Here is a great blog on how to use Open Office.
Technorati Tags : Microsoft, Open+Office, Lotus, WordPerfect
Not feeling at home
The image of resident aliens means in a possibly offensive way that American [or western] Christians need to stop feeling at home. We agree with Leslie Newbigin that today’s Western church ought to feel like missionaries in the very culture we thought we have devised. American Christians thought we had created, through our Constitution, a culture in which people were at least safe to be Christians.That was a mistake. The very notion that we Christians could ever feel at home in this culture or any other was criticized by Hugo of St. Victor: “The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom he entire world is a foreign place.” By being adopted to be part of a journey called discipleship, Christians are permanently ill at ease in the world.Wise Malcolm Muggeridge prayed that, “the only ultimate disaster that can befall us is to feed ourselves to be at home here on earth. As long as we are aliens we cannot forget our true homeland which is that other kingdom You proclaimed.”Constantinianism, which attempted through force of the state to make the world into the kingdom, which attempted to make the worship of God unavoidable to all without conversion or transformation was an ill-conceived project that has at last died of its own deceit. As Stanley has said, “It is unclear who started looking like whom first, whether Southern Baptist pastors started looking like Texas politicians, or Texas politicians started looking like Southern Baptist pastors.”Because we grew up in mainline Protestantism, we know that project well, American mainline Protestants hoped to be so nice, hoped to remake the gospel into something so self-evident and obvious, that the world would think that it was already Christian without having to die and be reborn. Fortunately, now that that project seems to be in its death throes, on the basic of membership statistics alone, many are now ready to let go of that deceit and to embrace their new status as sojourners. America, for any of its strengths and blessings is not God’s salvation.
A Modest Proposal for Peace
Let the Christians of the world agree that they will not kill each other.
From Where Resident Aliens Live
Some might think that an insignificant gesture, somewhat akin to the Burgundian plan for three days a week without war. But what could be more radical than a Christian’s unwillingness to kill other Christians because we understand that has a gathered people we are bound in a deeper unity than that which comes through family, neighborhood, or nation?
Technorati Tags : peace, Christianity
My 2006 Favorite Book List
Inspired by Rebecca Blood’s great list, It’s that time of year again for Christmas shopping. For any readers that are on your Christmas shopping list, here are the eleven best books I read in 2006.
- Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson
- 1491, . One of the best books that I have read in the last couple of years. via whose blog pointed me to 1491.
- Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
- Eat This Book, Eugene Peterson
- Band of Brothers, Stephen Ambrose
- The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda
- The Ten Faces of Innovation, David Kelly
- The Great Giveaway, David Fitch
- Cross Shattered Christ, Stanley Hauerwas
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
- Exiles, Michael Frost
Notable books of 2006 from the New York Times
Technorati Tags : books, Christmas+shopping
On Being a Christian and an American
I am an American, I know that any such denial would be self-deceptive. Even more important, I have to acknowledge that I love the land and the people called American. Of course the issue is not my love of America but rather how such a love should be shaped and governed by the love of God. — 24In short, I have never sought to justify Christian withdrawal from social and political involvement; I have just wanted us to be involved as Christians.From my perspective the problem is not liberalism but the assumption on the part of many Christians that they must become liberals or, at least, accept liberal political principles and/or practices in order to be of service in America. When that happens I believe Christians betray their non-Christian neighbors because we rob them and ourselves of exemplification of truthful speech forged through the worship of God. - 24The birth as well as the intelligibility of Christian ethics as a discipline drew on institutions we now call mainstream Protestant Christianity. These churches assumed a deep compatibility between Christianity and American liberal democracy. For most members of such churches it was unthinkable that being a Christian might in any way render problematic their full participation in American life. Christian ethics accordingly was understood as the mode of reflection that helped churches develop policies to make American ideals of freedom and equality more fully institutionalized in American life. - 25The problematic nature of this project is not due to the increasing loss of membership, social status, and political power of mainstream Christianity. No doubt such losses are not unimportant for understanding the loss of a distinctive voice of Protestant Christianity in America. Yet I think more important has been the increasing recognition that even if such churches remained socially and politically powerful, they would have nothing distinctive to say as Christians about the challenges facing this society. That such churches have nothing distinctive to contribute is not surprising, since their social and political power originally derived from the presumption that there was no or little essential difference between the church and the principles of the American experiment. - 25In short [Martin E.] Marty seems to think all this will work out if we just learn to be ‘civil’ to one another… Marty like Reinhold Niebuhr, assumes his task is making America work. The story Marty tells is the story of American in which Christians get to have a role. That such is the case should not be surprising, since Marty represents that discipline of American religious history. According it never seems to occur to him that he needs to tell the church’s story of America. As a result he fails to see how the story of America can tempt Christians to lose our own story and in the process to fail to notice the god we worship is no longer the God of Israel. - 29
Contextless Links
- Warren Buffett on class warfare :: “There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
- Seth Godin hits on topic that companies are not perfect, no matter what the hype. Church media does the same to large churches.
- Tony Jones responds to Brett Kunkle’s paper on the Emerging Church Movement and Emergent. While I wasn’t fond of the paper, Tony’s response is worth reading.
- Who is the worst President in history? :: George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a “failure.” Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration’s “pursuit of disastrous policies.” In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton — a category in which Bush is the only contestant. Rolling Stone magazine saw this coming in 1999.
- NBC is calling the Iraq conflict a civil war although with the amount of outside influences, it may just be an old fashioned war. An Op-Ed in the New York Times suggest that Americans should not say they are defeated too early. “Perceptions of success and failure can change the course of history. Reeling from the supposed disaster at Tet, the United States began to withdraw. Memories of “failure” in Somalia were a major reason — perhaps the major reason — that the United States did nothing to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. If Iraq is perceived as a failure, it is only a matter of time before America pulls out, leaving who-knows-what behind. With the stakes so high, Americans must be certain that their perception of failure in Iraq is not a mirage.”
- I am hiring Pernell Goodyear to be my official spokesman
A relaxing day off
Contextless Links
- I never realized that Ford was in that bad of shape. For the first time ever they have had to pledge collateral for their loans. :: Moody’s Investors Service on Monday cut Ford’s unsecured rating to Caa1, seven levels below investment grade. Fitch Ratings cut its ratings on Ford’s senior unsecured unsecured debt on Monday by one notch to “B,” five levels below investment grade, from “B-plus.” The outlook is negative, indicating another cut is likely in the next one to two years.
- Editorial from the Toronto Star on putting poverty back onto the political agenda.
- Danny Barrett has been fired!
- Chantel Hebert thinks Harper’s motion is a horrible thing for the BQ. I hope she is right. :: ”When the Bloc decided to bring the issue of Quebec’s national character to the floor of the Commons last week, it fully expected to wreak havoc in federalist ranks. In his worst nightmares, Duceppe never imagined that the Prime Minister would pick up the gauntlet or that the other parties would rally behind him. Now, it looks like the Bloc has squandered a key argument in the long battle for the hearts and souls of Quebecers in a failed attempt to score cheap political points.”
- According to Warren Kinsella, Gerald Kennedy is against the two Canada proposal :: “A senior Kennedy source said the third-place contender believes the motion is irresponsible and wrong for Canada. Kennedy believes the motion raises expectations of eventual constitutional entrenchment of Quebec nationhood without defining what is meant by the word nation. Moreover, he is worried that the motion will deepen divisions in the country, the source said. “
%20on%20his%20first%20visit%20to%20an%20assembly%20plant%20at%20the%20Ford%20assembly%20plant%20in%20Oakville,%20a%20Toronto%20suburb,%20Oct.%2016,%202006.%20REUTERS/J.P.%20Moczulski%20(CANADA)&from=business){kind=link}
Contextless Jordon Links
I have been busy but not with this site. Here are the links
Church of the Exiles Links
- To make it easier for people to find whatever it is that you are looking for, Church of the Exiles is now searchable with Google.
- Some of the things that you may be looking for is our first public gathering, Coffee For People Who Like To Think which starts on January 20th. Check the link out for details. Some more content, links, and other goodness has been added throughout the site.
Resonate Audio Links
- More Michael Frost
- I don’t know if you have listened to the N.T. Wright audio on Resonate but he sings Bob Dylan on it.
While talking to Pernell Goodyear the other night, we were talking about mistakes with wireless mics. I shared my biggest mistake with one and I didn’t realize I had hit record for the podcast. Wendy heard it while I was editing and had to upload it to ODEO. Umm, thanks Wendy and remember I hold a grudge for an insanely long time.
I am not alone on this one
The Out of Bounds Church
Pernell Goodyear and I got together tonight on Skype and re-recorded the audio for our discussion about Steve Taylor’s excellent book, The Out of Bounds Church for Resonate Audio. We had a good discussion about the book, the Freeway (who has an amazing new logo) and the Church of the Exiles. If you are looking to kill an hour, stop on by.
Technorati Tags : The+Out+of+Bounds+Church, podcast, book, Steve+Taylor, Pernell+Goodyear, Jordon+Cooper
A small endorsement
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper dropped a political bombshell today by introducing a motion recognizing that Quebecers form a nation within Canada.The surprise move was in response to a Bloc Quebecois motion calling for Quebecers to be recognized as a nation - but not within Canada. Harper said the Bloc motion was an “unusual request” that could result in the potential for Quebec to separate following a referendum on independence.
The prime minister says his motion recognizes Quebec’s historic role within Canada. The Liberals spoke in support of the government motion. The party’s national convention will debate a motion of its own on Quebec nationhood in early December.
London and Vancouver taxpayers :: losers
The IOC demands that Olympic bids are presented in today’s dollars, not in dollars or costs when the games will happen. This is an artificial number which is far lower than when the games are held. Of course the moment that the announcement that the games will be held in some city, it causes home sales and constructions to go up immediately making your numbers out of date, a couple of minutes after they were accepted. The same thing has happened in London where the games could be three to five billion pounds more expensive then estimated. What an insane system.
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
- Messy Faith: Daring to Live by Grace by A. J. Gregory October 28, 2008
- Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church by Lynne Hybels October 26, 2008
- The Teeth of the Tiger, A Novel by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell October 26, 2008
- The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
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