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Updated Comments…
November 18, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Announcements, Blogging, TechnicalFeedback : add a comment
Folks,
In anticipation of the release of WordPress 2.7, I went searching for info on how its new threaded comments feature will work. This is important to me because I have been using Brian’s Threaded Comments for years to give this blog the nice threaded comment look that makes interactions here so much easier to follow.
I did not find whether or not WordPress 2.7 will import the structure created by Brian’s Threaded Comments, but I did find that Brian’s plugin has been updated many times in the last year. I did not realize that WordPress’s feature that follows plugin updates was not tracking updates to Brian’s plugin, so my installed version here was hopelessly outdated.
The latest update adds new features like Gravatar support and trackback/pingbacks grouped at the end of the comment section.
So if you don’t have a Gravatar, please consider posting one at their site. They were bought by the company that produces WordPress, so Gravatars gel well with most sites.
Also, if you find any wackiness with comments under the latest Brian’s Threaded Comments update here, please let me know. And if anyone has any clue how to import the thread structure from Brian’s plugin to WordPress 2.7, I’d love to know about that, too!
Misty Monday Morning Musings
November 17, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : In the News, MiscellanyFeedback : 15 comments
Random thoughts running through my head…
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Though we’ve flirted with it in the past, this is the first year that I can say without hesitation that we Americans bypassed Thanksgiving entirely and went straight to Christmas. Boy, doesn’t that say it all.
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I don’t see many leftover Obama/Biden signs. You’d think the pair lost considering how quickly their signs vanished. On the other hand, McCain/Palin signs remain rooted in yards like oaks. I guess some people still believe.
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I predicted this years ago, but few heeded the call. What does it say that we are caught flatfooted again?
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My indulgent snack of choice are Frito Lay Cheetos. I got the last two 10-ounce bags at my local grocery store. The new bags are 8.5 ounces. Sigh.
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The truly countercultural Christians? Those who are making a vow to pray daily for the new president-elect rather than grind their teeth over his election while plotting his overthrow.
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Charismatics—a group with which I am closely associated, if only as being seen by some as an insider contrarian and quintessential wet blanket—blew it on Lakeland. Then they blew it on the 2008 election. Somewhere on this planet, rational, God-fearing charismatics still exist. I’m beginning to think they are an endangered species, though. Blame it on a reckless inability to test prophetic revelation against Scripture and a misunderstanding of the basic message of those same Scriptures. Add in a complete fascination with using politics to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven while ignoring the Great Commission altogether and you’ve summarized the entire state of far too many charismatic leaders, churches, and followers. God help us if we don’t wise up.
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I simply don’t understand why the online prices of some retail stores are often lower than their own brick-and-mortar incarnations. Case in point, why does it cost so much more to buy a book at a physical Barnes & Noble location than from their online store? I mean, how dumb does it sound for me to ask a store clerk, “Uh, your price online is 20 percent less for this. Will you match your own online price?”
Another killer:Â I need a digital voice recorder for my work now that my old microcassette recorder flaked out on me at an inopportune time. And I need it now. So I walk into a half dozen brick-and-mortar stores; they all have the same price on the model I was considering, $100. What kills me is the average online store is selling the same model for $20-25 less. I’m sorry, but that’s a big, deal-breaking difference. You feel robbed if you buy it from the brick-and-mortar. So I didn’t. I guess I’ll have to make do with flaky and pray really hard. I find it inexplicable that the big box brick-and-mortars, all things considered, can’t get within $10 of the online price at Joe Bob’s Gizmo Shack.
The fact that I’m worrying about the cost of a digital voice recorder when people are living in squalor in much of the world troubles me. I just don’t know what to do about it.
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Children do grow up fast. Especially when you don’t see a particular kid day in and day out. One day they’re teething and the next they’re texting.
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Spotted: $1.69/gal. for gas. It’s like 2005 all over again—except without the hurricanes.
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Am I the only one who thinks that Russia is looking scarier and more unhinged every day?
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I heard on a radio program discussing the economy that China needs to create 24 million new jobs each year to prevent its economy from collapsing. Get this: Employment in China is in a freefall. Say it with me: “Uh-oh.”
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My son asked for one toy for Christmas. One. This weekend only, every discount store cut the price of that toy from $25 to $10. And you guessed it, every store I visited had a gaping hole on its shelf where that toy would have sat. As much as I really hate consumerism, there’s something about that gaping hole that makes one feel like a lousy parent.
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Is it just me or are Lego construction kits the greatest toys ever created for boys?
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Apart from Lego, my son doesn’t seem to like any of the toys I liked as a kid. That would send most dads into a shopping black hole, I think. It’s worse for my wife; she grew up with two sisters and no brothers.
On that same note, my son just started Cub Scouts and my wife drew me aside to ask if the level of mayhem that often ensues at meetings is common with boys under the age of 10—to which I gave the classic “Jack Benny stares into the camera knowingly” pose.
BTW, thank you to all who contributed their comments to my “About a Boy” post. I appreciate the insights.
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One of the greatest American success stories of the last 50 years: Frozen pizzas are W-A-A-A-Y better than they used to be.
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Hey, I know some of you have your own businesses. A few weeks back, I offered to help you promote your business free of charge by increasing your links through my Employ the Body! page. Since Google loves backlinks, here’s your chance to ramp up the visibility of your business’s site, so check out the link.
***
My church held its annual Thanksgiving feast yesterday. Due to enormous containers of food stretching over a dozen full-length folding tables, no one left hungry. The hall was warm and filled with healthy people. No state police broke in and arrested anyone while we prayed. Father God, thank you so very much.
Moths, Rust
November 12, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Counterculture, Discernment, Faith, Godly Character, Maturity, Oddities, SimplicityFeedback : 11 comments
Overheard countless times in the last two months: “I am concerned about the poor performance of my investments and savings.”
Not heard even one time in the last two decades:Â “I am concerned about my poor performance in laying up treasure in heaven.”
{Image from reader Ronni Hall and Cory Jamison. Thanks!}
Aftermath
November 10, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Boldness, Charismatic, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Counterculture, Discernment, Godly Character, In the News, Leadership, Maturity, Oddities, RevivalFeedback : 57 comments
The election is over. The dust has settled. My thoughts follow.
A Battle of Truths
My church is doing a worldview series featuring The Truth Project from Focus on the Family. I’ve seen one installment so far, and I must say it was excellent. I look forward to viewing the rest of the teachings.
We adjourned for discussion afterwards. As the meeting was the day after the election, the talk rapidly shifted to the results. A strongly prolife church, most of us were disappointed with the election outcome. But I reminded everyone we are also an almost exclusively white, penturbian church.
What many white evangelicals who are strongly anti-abortion have not been able to see is another strong truth that drove record numbers of black voters to the polls. In many ways, this election pitted battling truths: The long, grim shadow of abortion in America against the longer, grim shadow of slavery and its hold on the black American psyche.
In the end, the election of a half-black president forever ends “The System.” It’s the culmination of the civil rights movement. It puts to death a long nightmare for American people of African descent who have never truly been able to close the door on what happened to their ancestors.
And white Evangelicals can’t see this racial triumph as a win. But then again, how can we since we were never on the receiving end of 400 years of prejudice?
I’m strongly anti-abortion. I was a part of Operation Rescue. I’ve been in the trenches. I’ve argued strongly here and on other blogs that the baseline for any Christian voter must be prolife because anything else is barbarism and anti-God.
I noted a couple posts ago that I’ve been getting nonstop email from Christians about the election and the abortion issue, plus other issues, that have driven people into a frenzy.
I have a response.
And here is where it gets tricky.
You see, for all our talk, we Evangelicals had an opportunity in 2000 to throw our weight behind the most prolife candidate ever to run for president. No one running that year ran a stronger prolife, profamily, pro-Constitution ticket than did this candidate. He had been appointed to high office by the king of the conservative movement, President Ronald Reagan—an imprimatur if there can ever be one in conservative ranks—and is regarded by many as one of the smartest men in politics. He was a leading Republican contender for president that year, finishing a strong third in Iowa in a packed GOP field. When the first set of GOP debates was held, most pundits agreed that he not only won the debate but blew the other candidates away.
Conservative Evangelical Christians had the opportunity to put this man into the White House, but they ultimately rejected him in droves in favor of George W. Bush.
That man is Alan Keyes.
And Alan Keyes is black.
You see, we Evangelicals had the chance to elect the first black president AND the most prolife, profamily candidate to ever run for the office. In one fell swoop, we could have dealt with both battling truths that came to the fore in the 2008 election and possibly kept the radically pro-abortion Obama off the national scene and out of the presidency. We could have brought about genuine healing for our nation on two different and very worthy fronts and done so on conservative terms.
Didn’t happen, did it?
Instead, we threw our allegiance behind what has proven to be the most impotent presidency since Jimmy Carter.
So, if we white Christians are asking for repentance from black Christians who voted for Obama because he was black (thus rejecting an anti-abortion platform in favor of a racial one), how are we repenting for failing to support the candidacy of Alan Keyes when we had the opportunity?
Think about it.
Which leads me to my next point.
The Republican Party has done next to nothing for born-again Christians…
…yet we continue to mindlessly suck at its teat. For all our talk of supporting righteousness and foundational American truths, how is it that so many Christians in this election voted slavishly for a man who was soundly repudiated by us same Christians just a few years ago for being nominally Christian, nominally Constitutional, and in bed with Democrats to the point of having his party allegiance questioned?
If we were so interested in supporting prolife, profamily, pro-Constitution Christians, and if all of our prophetic “words” really lined up with what we say we believe, then Christians would have voted as a block for Chuck Baldwin and not John McCain.
Exactly.
Our rhetoric doesn’t line up with truth very well, does it?
No, the devotion to the GOP continues to not only bite us but show us as not all that dedicated to our principles.
Many people were shouting that it’s all about the Supreme Court justices, and that principles begin there. Yet the GOP’s record of getting conservative justices on the court who ultimately act like real conservatives has been dismal. So why the sudden idea that putting another Republican in office (especially one with a history of dancing with the center-left) would change this trend?
We look like sheep in the end. And not the Lord’s sheep, but GOP sheep. Baa on all of us. It’s the old case of fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
There’s a reason we’ve been fleeced:
Politics is not the answer and never has been
Cal Thomas says it well:
Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative Evangelical image has failed. The question now becomes: Should conservative Christians redouble their efforts, contributing more millions to radio and TV preachers and activists, or would they be wise to try something else?
Read the entire piece: “Religious Right R.I.P.” (If you’ve been a reader of Cerulean Sanctum for long you’ve already read most of Thomas’s comments, but I want them to come from someone else.)
The only “Change We Can Believe In” is Jesus Christ. Neither the Republicans nor Democrats offer real change. Anything or anyone else that gets billed as change is a lie.
If want to to see our land healed, then we do what Jesus Christ told us to do in the Great Commission: We make disciples.
Because a nation right with God only comes about through the transformation of human lives by Jesus Christ. And that happens when you and I do the one thing so few of us care to do.
Politics is easy. It takes very little to put up a sign in our yard announcing our choice in candidates.
Evangelizing the world is much tougher, especially in a post-Christian West that has been inoculated against the Gospel by Christians who talk a good faith but who live it haphazardly. Heart change only comes, though, when Christians stop talking about evangelism and actually start doing it. It’s when our walk matches our talk. When our rhetoric matches the Bible and is lived out before the world, then people might sit up and take notice. We have to stop dedicating so much time to erecting our individual kingdoms and spend more time working with the Lord to build His Kingdom His way.
I have a word that is not so much prophetic as it’s just common sense: If we don’t get back to doing the Great Commission and tending to the least of these, then four years from now we’ll have the same old Christian pundits and “prophets” claiming that 2012 is “the election to end all elections.” As the great pundit Yogi Berra said, it will be déjà vu all over again.
God help us if that’s the case.
One last comment…
Distracting voices only get us off our mission
As much as the loss of this election has taught some of us Christians a lesson, I hope those infatuated with the modern prophetic movement learn more than anyone.
Fact is, almost every “prophetic word” that I heard about this election was wrong. End of story.
McCain didn’t win. It didn’t come down to Ohio. Palin proved to be a nonfactor. In fact, it wasn’t about any of the things I heard coming out of any of the typical sources for “prophecy” that cluttered my inbox. If there was a massive failure anywhere in this election, point a finger at the prophetic movement because it could not have been more off on nearly everything it said.
It is high time charismatics stopped listening to the self-proclaimed prophets out there. The real prophets of God don’t mess around with this political garbage. Instead, genuine prophetic utterance calls people to repentance, to the Lord, and to the Christ-ordained work of the Church.
But that’s not flashy. It doesn’t allow people to get comfy in some pseudognostic in-crowd, either. It’s simple stuff, the whisper that carries the voice of God when the earthquake and storm do not. We charismatics have got to be more discerning on all these “words” or else we are going to be perpetually tossed around like ragdolls on a rollercoaster by our so-called prophets.
It’s time to purge the house of God, folks.
If we truly want change, God-honoring change, then it begins in our own hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit. And there’s only one way to get that change, too. We should know the way by now.
About a Boy
November 6, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Miscellany, YouthFeedback : 48 comments
Of course, many possible topics exist after the events of this week, but I want to ask readers for a parenting tip. This is a great chance for you to help my family.
My son is eight. He’s a very smart boy with an enormous vocabulary. He reads at the grade level of kids nearly twice his age. His math skills are way above his peers. He reasons differently than most peers, too. Think “little professor” and you get the idea.
Other children notice this. He often gets labeled “Brain.” Boys his age treat him differently. He winds up in a group of one when other kids play. He’s an only child, which only compounds the issue.
We put him in public school to try to alleviate some of this problem, and it has helped from a socialization standpoint. He’s much better at being part of a group.
Still, he’s the odd man out in too many activities. Sadly, this is even evident at church. Other children simply do not include him in their groups. Often, they purposefully exclude him. Our son has no problem interacting with other children, though. He’s not shy at all and approaches peers easily.
My wife is concerned that our son doesn’t have friends. It’s sad for both of us to see him left out, eventually drifting off to do his own thing or attempting to remain part of the group when others don’t want him to be. We’re also concerned that the rare, spontaneous groups that do allow him to join are often comprised of maladjusted boys who look for trouble.
Anyone out there have advice on what we can do to help our son make solid friendships?
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