Book Review: The Myth of a Christian Nation--How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church By Gregory A. Boyd

This is the start of the review I had said earlier was coming. So far it only covers the introduction section of the book.

Introduction: “Like many evangelical pastors in the month before the 2004 election, I felt pressure from a number of right-wing political and religious sources, as well as from some people from my own congregation, to “shepherd my flock” into voting for “the right candidate” and the “right position.” Among other things I was asked to hand out leaflets, to draw attention to various political events, and to have church members sign petitions, make pledges, and so on. Increasingly, some on our church grew irate, because of my refusal (supported by the church board) to have the church participate in these activities.”

This is the first paragraph of the introduction, which is titled - - How this book came to be and why it may irritate some readers. This is the reason why Boyd preached a sermon series entitled “The Cross and the Sword.” By the way, Boyd is the senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota as well as an author. The central thesis of the book is this: He believes a significant portion of American evangelicalism is guilty of political and nationalistic idolatry. In other words, many American evangelicals have allowed their understanding of the Kingdom of God to become distorted with political ideals, agendas, and other issues. It has become about voting for the “Christian” candidate, outlawing gay marriages, outlawing abortion, keeping the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. etc. etc.

Boyd writes of two kingdoms. One is the kingdom of the world. The second is the kingdom of God. He says that evangelicalism has fused the two kingdoms into a preferred kingdom of the world rather than focus on the understanding of God’s kingdom. Which is to say Jesus. Who, never let himself get pulled into the political disputes of his day. The author believes the fusing of the two kingdoms is caused by the myth that America is a Christian nation with the church as its guardian.

Now, for my take on his thesis. It seems that every election, whether it be local, state, or national, I get more and more uncomfortable with the actions and words of the candidates who openly profess to being Christians. I have been feeling, for some time now, that these folks, while sincere in their beliefs, are doing an awful lot of damage to the name and cause of Jesus. I see them alienating and in most cases bullying anyone that doesn’t agree with them. I might add here that they always do this in the name of Jesus. I’ve not found anywhere in the Gospels where Jesus alienated or bullied anyone except for the corrupt religious leaders of his day. In fact it’s the very type of people that modern day politicians treat like outcasts that Jesus embraced, loved, and ministered to. For me, it’s very hard to reconcile the Jesus that I read about in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John with the Jesus I see and hear about come election time.

I was hooked on the book after reading just the introduction. I was hooked because, from what Boyd writes in the introduction, I believe he is right.

Midwifery Pilgrimage

Sylvia and I made, what has become, our monthly pilgrimage to Lakeland for our appointment with the birth center. All is well..... we heard the baby's heartbeat again and everything is looking good.

Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day, the kids are out of school, Sylvia is still pregnant and I woke up this morning with a headache. I took some meds, slept for another hour and then I and the family walked a mile. Basically not much going on right now. We are going to have lunch with Sylvia's parents and who knows what the rest of the day will hold. I hope to get some practice time in today and hopefully one of my customers will call me with an approval so I can get paid.

I've been reading, at the suggestion of my friend Grant, a book entitled The Myth of a Christian Nation. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it and it is a great read. The author, a pastor in Minnesota felt the need to preach a series of sermons entitled The Cross and The Sword. Because of the sermon series the pastor lost 1,000 people, roughly 20% of his congregation, because he would not support the Republican Party from the pulpit. Personally, I think that if he got that kind of a reaction then he was probably on the right track. He told his people what they needed to hear and some didn't like it.

What the author, more of less, is saying in the book is that America is not, nor has ever been, a Christian nation because America has never looked like Jesus. And that looks like a person who was willing to die for the very people that crucified him.

I'm not going to give away anymore about the book as I'm not finished reading it yet. I will give a more in depth review in a later post. This is a very good book and will more than likely offend a great majority of evangelicals. Again I think the author is right on track in what he is saying.

Guthrie Govan Video

...And The Winner Is

Jordan Sparks won American Idol!

And she deserves it.

Frank Gambale video

Frank Gambale: Guitar
Bunny Brunel: Bass
Virgil Donoti: Drums
Mitch Foreman: Keys



Frank Gambale sweep picking lesson.

One More Use For Petrolium Jelly

Right now I am exhausted. Mentally, physically, emotionally. I spent the better part of yesterday fighting head lice on my kids. It all started two weeks ago when I discovered nits ( lice eggs ) in Liam’s hair. I then found them in Tyler’s and Rachel’s. It was troubling but doable. A little over a year ago Rachel had lice and so we jumped on the Internet and found some natural, essential oil based remedy. It worked. It worked great. One day later and all the lice were gone. And they didn’t return.

This time is different however. I used the same remedy as last time. I nit picked all three of the kids hair not once but two or three times over the course of a week just to make sure I got them all. I checked their hair randomly over the course of last week and I found not even the first nit. I made the kids put hair gel in their hair and I didn’t let them wash their hair very much either. Lice like clean hair by the way; it’s easier for them to attach to clean hair than to dirty hair. The stigma that how clean or dirty you are relates to lice is totally untrue. So let your kids get dirty… especially their hair. Dirty hair = no lice.

This time it was different also because I found live bugs on both of my boy’s heads. What’s worse I found nits and live bugs in and on their eyelashes. No, not eyebrow’s. Not the bushy hair above their eyes… their eyelashes! I picked 7 live bugs with their little wiggly legs out of Tyler’s lashes and 4 or 5 out of Liam’s. It was excruciating. For the boys because when I would use the tweezers to pick out the bugs I would also pull out hair. It was torture for me because every time I would try to pull out a bug I had to listen to them scream out in pain. And I didn’t always get the bug on the first try. I can’t express how awful it was. It was so bad for the boys that every time I would go in for a bug they would shake in fear making it harder for me and making it worse for everyone.

Once again I went to the Internet and found out that if I put Vaseline in their eyelashes twice a day for eight days it will kill the lice. That’s much better than plucking their lashes out and I don’t have to torture them anymore. Good thing because I couldn’t deal with doing that to them. That’s a big part of why I’m so exhausted. Now I just have a lot of laundry to deal with.

ADD and Other Stuff....... Oh, and American Idol Sucks!

Well American Idol doesn't suck but America does. What in the world is wrong with you people? Why would you vote off Melinda Doolittle? She should be the winner. She deserves it. But nooooooooo............. all of the idiots voted her off. That's right, the same morons that kept Sanjawa, who couldn't sing with Josh Groban's voice, on the show.

OK, rants over. My daughters school thinks she has ADD. They think she needs to be medicated.

Here's why. She had accomplished absolutely nothing this year in school. No, really. She has done nothing. She is in her own world when she is in school. This has been an on going problem. Once, a couple of years ago she had a wedding on her desk where she married her pencils. This is a daily issue. Not marrying her pencils, just not being focused on what she is supposed to be doing. Sylvia and I have been trying for 4 years now to have her held back. We held Tyler back in first grade and it was one of the best things we could have done for him. With Rachel we have been handed one excuse after another as to why she should not be held back.

Now here we are ready to go to the 5th grade and she is not ready. Once again we are being handed more excuses by the school system to not hold here back. They told us to get her tested and to get an official diagnosis for ADD. We took her to our doctor and he took her off of sugar, artificial sweeteners, dairy, and caffeine. He says get rid of this stuff and her focus will come back. He says medication is just a to keep ADD prone kids out of every one's hair so that they don't have to deal with the problem. So we have begun the arduous task of removing these things from her diet. What we have found out so far is that she doesn't get caffeine. The only soda she drinks is Sprite. She doesn't eat a lot of dairy......... she hates milk. She eats cereal without milk. She does eat a lot of cheese though. Oh, and ice cream. But we don't let her or the other 2 eat a lot of this stuff. We try to keep it in check and for the most part do a fairly good job at it. So we are going to try what the doctor said for a while and see what happens.

Sylvia is doing fine. She is over the nausea, morning sickness thing and is now moving into the my clothes don't fit me anymore phase. Thankfully I have a couple of very lucrative jobs going right now. We are also church shopping........... if that's an appropriate way to put it. With gas prices being over $3 a gallon driving the 40 miles to our last church 3 days a week is just way too much. Plus with what went on at Disney a few weeks ago we feel we need to stick close to home and not put too much stress on Sylvia.

So here we are going through a transition period in our lives and actually looking forward to it.

The Smoky Haze That Florida Has Become

I downloaded these images from TBO.com. They show how bad it has been here for the last week or so. The top image is from a NASA satellite. It show an aerial view of the wildfire.

The Great Joe Pass "All The Things You Are"

Background Singers

I'm convinced that the background singers on American Idol are absolutely HORRENDOUS! I think that there were performances this season that the judges were less than pleased with and the voters vote off because the background singers flat out sucked. The background singers caused a lot of contestants to get vote off of the show. The band is absolutely awesome. The background singers........ not so much. I say America should vote them off as well.

What?????

I went out to my van this morning to take the kids to school and saw very small whitish flakes of something falling from the sky. When I got to the van I noticed it was covered in a thin layer of the same stuff. Then I remembered the weather report from last night on the news....... ash. It was falling ash from the wild fire burning in southern Georgia! The weather man said it would be smokey this morning. Plus last night the temperature dropped way below what it has been. It was in the mid 50's. With my ceiling fan going last night I got cold enough to use a blanket. I thought I was still living in Florida. The land where we give spring, fall, and winter amiss and go straight on into summer.

I heard on the radio this morning that the Skyway Bridge is very bad. It's covered in smoke and visibility is not so good. If you've ever been over the Skyway you know how nerve wracking that can be on a clear day. I went over the bridge a couple of times in a 15 foot box truck in high winds and thought I was going to need Prozac to help calm me down. It was bad.

It is supposed to clear up as the winds change direction and blow from more of a southern direction. And at first when I walked outside it smelled very good. Kind of like a camp fire. A really BIG camp fire. But that got old rather fast as my eyes got irritated. Even with the windows up in the van it was still bothersome. Hopefully they can get this fire under control. It's been burning for a few weeks now and doesn't seem to be willing to go away without a fight.

THE Classic Of All Time

My oldest son, Tyler, discovered this video a couple of days ago. He laughed like he was going to pee his pants.

Boom, Boom, Boom........

160 beats per minute. A good strong heart beat. I was there........ I heard it for myself. The new kid is doing just fine. Sylvia is too.

We're Off To See The Wizard

We have our first appointment at Labor Of Love this morning. Labor Of Love is a birthing center in Lakeland, Florida. My daughter was born there in 1995. In fact none of my children were born in a hospital. Tyler was born at the Hollywood Birth Center in Hollywood, Florida, Rachel at Labor of Love and Liam was born at home. The new baby will more than likely be born at home as well. Unless there is some weird and unexpected complication resulting from last weekends stressful little drama...... that is the plan.

Sylvia has been doing fine. No more problems since Saturday night. She took Monday and Tuesday off from work and rested. Yesterday she went back to work. She was tired but all in all felt good. I'll pick her up this morning at 10:15 and head to Lakeland. Pray that everything goes alright and that they don't label her high risk.