Independence Bowl

You know this is a slow week if I’m posting about Oklahoma State football.  That’s almost like writing about the best places to snow ski in Angola.  But they’re a state school and they’re playing mighty Alabama, so what better than to give up my thoughts on two mediocre football teams?

Why OSU will win:

• Alabama has absolutely nothing to play for.
• They’ve been turned down by coaches more than Ralph Malph’s been turned down by girls.
• OSU players have the chance to tell their grandkids that they once beat Alabama (no one will remember the records).
• OSU has a very creative offense.

Why it will be close:

• OSU has a very bad defense.
• Alabama lost by an average of 8 points losing by only 1 to Arkansas, 3 to Tennessee and 7 to Auburn.
• No one scored more than 28 on Alabama’s defense.
• OSU gave up more than 28 points in 7 games and gave up 27 in their loss to OU.  They lost all but two of those eight games.
• Despite all of that, Alabama only scored 28 or more three times.

Holiday Reading

I’ll be away most of the week listening to some raucous hillbilly bluegrass music, sitting in a hot tub and spending my Christmas money in the Ozark mountains of Branson, Missouri.  While I’m away let me encourage you to get on over and read Michael Bird’s essay Confessions of an Evangelical Antipodean Baptist Neutestamentler.  No, I have no idea what most of that means.  But my friend Paul T. asked me to get back to blogging on denominational issues and this may well be one of the most salient things I’ve read about the current climate in that distinctly Southern Baptist life.

A Christmas Letter

From our three year old:

Hello Friends,

My mommy and daddy thought
about sending one of those Christmas letters to everyone this year instead of
giving out cards, but neither of them wanted to write it, so, not being the shy
type, I volunteered.

My, how time flies when
you’re three. It seems like it was just
yesterday that I was two. Mom and dad
tried to potty train me this past year and I’ve done a pretty good job, but I
still wear a pull-up at night because…well, mainly because I want to show them
that I’m still the boss and because sometimes I’m just too busy to go all the
way down the hall to the bathroom. Especially at night. When I’m
asleep.

I got a new brother and
sister this year, which means that I get to share a room with Jessica now. I really don’t mind because I’m the social
one and I like the company and because I can make a big mess and tell mom and
dad that I didn’t do it. And if I need
help sometimes they’ll make her help me. It’s hilarious!

My new sister is Chelsea.  I like her name because it sounds like Kelsey
and when mom and dad are yelling at me I can brush it off as if they were
yelling at her instead. She’s 14 and
she’s lived with us since September. She
talks a lot and we get along pretty well. We’re both princesses.

My new brother is
Victor. I haven’t really gotten to know
him that well, even though he’s lived with us since April. I usually only see the back of his head while
he’s playing the Gamecube or Playstation or watching TV. I hear he’s nice. He wants to grow up and be a basketball player
or a football player.

Jessica just turned nine in
November. She’s playing basketball. Sometimes I get out there and play with the
big girls when they practice. I don’t
think they like that, but I don’t care because, like I said, I’m a
princess. She’s really smart and does
really well in school, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Wesley’s five and is in Kindergarten at school. He’s always
showing off how he can add numbers already. Whatever. He likes to play soccer
and his soccer team won every game this fall. He even got his picture in the Sapulpa
paper. I love my big brother. We play together a lot. Sometimes we fight. But that’s because he’s not treating me like
a princess.

I’m three and I go to
preschool three days a week. I like to
color and glue. I like to wear lots of
different clothes, sometimes all in the same day. Sometimes I tell mommy and daddy that I want
a new mommy and daddy, but then I usually change my mind. I’ve got a boyfriend named Preston. He goes to my church.

We’ve lived in Sapulpa for almost three
years now. We all really like it
here. We have lots of friends. Mommy and daddy have re-done the
kitchen. I like drawing on the new
chalkboard in the kitchen. I also like
drawing on the walls. Or just about anywhere. We got two dogs this year. They’re both Boxers. The oldest and biggest is Niki and the other
one is Sadie. Niki is mommy’s dog and
Sadie is daddy’s dog. But sometimes
they’re both mine. I love them.

Well, that’s us! I already know what I’m getting for Christmas
because I’ve been snooping in mommy and daddy’s closet. I forgot what it was, though. We all hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Love,

Kelsey

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you!

Conflicts IV

Well…I’ve saved the one that will get me in the most trouble for last.  What could be worse than maligning Christmas, challenging personal economics and politics, you ask?  Theology.

I feel like I need to give a hundred qualifications for what will follow.  You’ll have to settle for a few less.  Here are the ones that many out there might think the most important, anyway.  What follows has nothing to do with what is or is not acceptable in the current culture.  My struggle is firmly with Biblical ideas and Biblical words, what they mean and how they fit into the whole, not with whether the topic is popular on CNN or in Time magazine.  My struggle also has nothing to do with some "liberal" or "moderate" I’ve been reading.  Truth is I haven’t been reading anything about this and probably need to do so before I draw any firm conclusions.  But let me say, that whatever you think about what follows, Kevin Stilley says that I’m more conservative than he is.  You’ll have to judge whether that is good for me or bad for him.

I also write this with a little trepidation because I know that a few from my church might be reading and it can be dangerous talking in public about theological questions that for many have been settled for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

I’m talking about hell.  More specifically the concept of eternal punishment.  I should probably save this post until after my review of A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity, by Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor.  That might clarify, at least to a large extent, what I am not saying here.  You see, I believe in hell.  I believe people will suffer eternal punishment.  Though I take no pleasure in any of that.  I’m not one of those preachers who preaches hell with a smile on my face.  I rather feel like Charles Spurgeon who said that if people are going to go to hell let us make them leap over our bodies to get there.

My conflict is on two levels.  One level relates back to the Old Testament law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  We might be tempted to view those as commands.  Instead they were provisions for a people who lived in a world that believed in two eyes for one and at least that many teeth besides.  It was actually a law against injustice.  If someone pokes you in the eye you are not permitted to exact more from him.  God knows well our penchant for one-upmanship, but one-upmanship is contrary to God’s economics of justice.  Thus, the worst one could do was one life for one life.  If someone killed your brother you weren’t allowed to go kill all of his family.  In those cases there were even cities of refuge where people could flee to safety.  We could use more of this kind of justice in our world today.

These are God’s standards to his people regarding justice.  And God is a just God.  Therein lies my rub.  Scripture clearly teaches that "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil." (2 Cor. 5:10).  But if God’s rule for humanity is that we should not exact from one another more than what is due, can God do otherwise?  If my knocking your tooth out deserves no more than one of my own teeth, then how does my lie deserve eternal punishment?  Does that not violate the terms of justice?  Or is God double-minded - one standard for us with each other and another, more severe standard altogether, when we stand before him?

I’m wondering if the solution isn’t resolved on the other level of this conflict: with the definition of "eternal punishment."  I’ve already said that I believe in hell and that people will go there.  Nevertheless, what does "eternal" mean, and what, exactly, is the "punishment" that will be meted out?

I believe that the "eternal" in "eternal life" is not primarily quantitative - an expression of an amount of time - but is qualitative - an expression of the nature of that life.  Jesus says that "whoever believes in the Son has eternal life" (John 3:36; Cf. John 5:24, 39; 6:47, 54; 10:28 and 12:50; 1 Tim. 6:12, along with others).  At the least "eternal life" is something more, if not other, than just heaven.  It is a new kind of life and perhaps not all too different than the "abundant" life that Jesus came to give (John 10:10), or the "water that wells up unto eternal life" (John 4:14).

If any of that is true, then to what extent must we also view "eternal punishment" as being qualitative rather than quantitative?  Isn’t it good hermeneutics to use the term consistently?  And if so, when the Bible speaks of eternal punishment, is it telling us about the nature of the punishment rather than the duration?  Of course, I realize that this leads to the question, "Is hell eternal?"  I don’t intend to address that question here other than to pose it, since we are all thinking it right about now.

What, then, is the "punishment?"  Well, however controversial everything up to now might be, I don’t expect what follows to be controversial at all, or at least not anything that sounds either new, novel or left-of-center.  I believe, as Jonathan Edwards did, that whatever else might be contained in the word "punishment," the primary "hell" of eternal punishment involves separation from God.  The glory of eternal life is not just the fact that we get to live on and on.  Many have rightly said that if this life is all there is then the sooner it’s over the better.  I mean, what we’re living right now is life, after all.  But for many it is a troubled life, full of sorrow and heartache.  Even God’s children face tribulations that would dim the brightest of lights.  What do you say about a "life" that includes cancer in children?  Our church has been praying for a four-month-old boy who has yet to see the inside of his own home.  He’s spent all of his young life in hospitals, having already had a liver transplant.  I spent a good bit of last week in hospitals visiting those with broken hips and others with broken spirits.  No.  The glory of eternal life is that wherever it is, it is in the real presence of the real God.  It is where every tear gets wiped away because there is no more sorrow or pain.  It is basking in the glory of the Ever-Radiant One.  It is joy unspeakable and full of glory.  It is bliss, and paradise because He is there.

And hell is hell not because of flames (I’ve always wondered how literal flames cause pain for a non-physical/material soul), or worms, or ghouls, or beasts, or the devil.  Hell is hell because God’s presence is withdrawn from it.  Were God there you could take the flames and worms, ghouls, beasts and devils and still put a smile on your face and have joy in your heart because greater is he that is in you than even the flames and the worms and all the other.  Thus, the punishment is to be separated from God.

The other question that for me is left is this: Is God being just to punish the sins a person will commit in 70, 80 or 100 years of life on this earth by making that punishment last forever and ever?  Would it be more just to add another 100 "years" of separation from God after death?  If the separation lasts forever and ever is that going beyond "an eye for an eye" kind of justice?

It might be well said that the "eternal" in "eternal life" has a quality of time in it, even if time is not the main element.  After all, doesn’t eternal life last forever and ever?  I do believe that.  One way I resolve that dilemma is with the Biblical teaching about resurrection.  It is in the resurrection that we live to die no more.  It is in the resurrection that, even though we die, yet shall we live.  It is in the resurrection that death has lost its sting and dominion and is conquered (1 Cor. 15).  It seems to me that those who die apart from faith in Christ do not participate in the resurrection of the body which could allow for the possibility of an existence that, in fact, has a final end.

Let me close by saying that I have many more questions than I have answers.  That is my present conflict.  I’m somewhat conflicted by the possibility that modern evangelical notions of hell have more in common with the Medieval Catholic church than with the teachings of Scripture, with Dante than with Jesus or the apostle Paul.  But I’m conflicted because I’m unsettled on that and on many of the questions I raise in this post.  Please don’t take me to be so much "teaching" anything here, as searching, through the means of these questions.

Next week we are taking the family on a little vacation.  Posting will either be sparse or non-existent until we return (unless I can write something ahead of time).  I suppose that will give ample time for the flames in the comment section to develop into a good blaze.

Conflicts III

I hate to say it (sort-of), but for twenty years I’ve been a single-issue voter.  To me, matters of life and death, particularly when we’re dealing with those who’s only sin was to be conceived in inconvenience, are penultimate.  Twenty years ago you could find me at a Young Republican’s meeting at Oklahoma Baptist University.  Eighteen years ago you could find me stumping for a Republican judge in Texas and writing a paper supporting the death penalty in my seminary ethics class.  Fifteen years ago, if you lived in Oklahoma, I might have called you on the phone to ask you to vote for Republican Senator Don Nichols.  After he was re-elected you could have found me at a "thanks for all your hard work" party in Ponca City, OK (I was the one with a soda in my hand).

But I would leave that Young Republican’s meeting to attend a class on building a sustainable society where we’d talk about issues that today would be labeled "Green."  Things like community gardens, solar and/or wind energy.  We toured our professor’s home (I knew him well because he was also one of our philosophy professors).  His water was solar heated.  His home was wide open so that the flow of heated and cooled air could move from room to room easily.  He used a wood burning stove to heat the entire house and because of the design it was remarkably effective.

In that same seminary ethics class we discussed AIDS (a disease we still knew relatively little about).  We heard a report from a fellow student who spent a lot of volunteer hours visiting AIDS patients.  In those days we still thought you might contract AIDS by touch, sweat or a variety of other ways that have since been ruled out.  Yet she would hug them and hold their hands and love them.

Shortly after campaigning for Don Nichols I went to work in a full-time CPE program at Presbyterian hospital in Oklahoma City.  One of my assignments for a while was to work in the Chemical Dependency Unit of the VA hospital in OKC.  I’ve seen the dark side of alcohol and drug addiction and abuse up close, in young and in old, wealthy, formerly wealthy and dirt poor.  I saw guys who needed long-term support and care given 30 days to get clean before they were released to the Salvation Army or the local Jesus House.  And I saw many of them return after their required 90 day stint on their own.

I minister to school teachers who work long hours for minimum pay.  I shop at Wal-Mart where single moms work long hours and are refused health-care benefits for their children, where they settled a lawsuit over the hiring of illegal immigrants, and where they have broken child-labor laws and practice gender discrimination.

I’m conflicted because I see little in the Republican party that has made any substantial attempt to deal with any of these issues in a constructive way.  I’m conflicted because I am a part of an American evangelical Christianity that is almost entirely and uncritically in bed with the Republican party - who will support them as long as they support capitalism and oppose abortion and homosexual marriage.  Do that and we’ll vote for you, we’ll go to war with you, we’ll let you spend the country into oblivion, and we’ll be silent when you make sexual advances toward minor pages.  And I don’t go for any of that stuff.

Conflicts II

Dave Ramsey calls
himself a "stuff-aholic."  By the way, I recommend his
"stuff."  It’s helping a lot of people in our church right
now.  It might help you, especially if you’ve just finished buying your
Christmas with plastic.  My best money advice is this:  Get out of
debt and stay out of debt.  If you’re a pastor do not lead your church
into debt.  There you have it.

But once that happens how do we live economically?  I’m not asking if
capitalism is Christian.  My concern isn’t with macro-economics and the
virtues/vices of free economies vs. tightly controlled ones, open vs. closed,
etc.  My question is how should we as the people of God live economically
both toward one another and toward our world?

It’s hardly debatable that the evangelical church in America does more to mirror the economic values of society than to challenge
them.  Just look at our church buildings and then look at the accompanying
price tags that come with them.  We have a church building, by the
way.  Ask Rick Warren how much the 40
Days of Purpose will cost you.  Ask Lifeway how much the FAITH Sunday
School Evangelism Strategy®
training will set you back.  Spirituality is no longer merely about a changed life.  In America it is also about a changed bank account.  If not yours, someones.  The "seed faith" charlatans on TV are just the most obvious and egregious offenders.  Most of the rest of the American church offends in more subtle ways.  Every week I get offers in the mail to market our church through personalized pens, calendars and key rings.  There are dozens of companies through which we might buy a new sign, choir robes or communion cups.  If you want to learn how to lead more effectively you can give John Maxwell $249 to tell you how (that is, if you get in early).  The church is now big business right down to the trinkets that we wear and the music we listen to.

But beyond the church as marketplace, most members of the church live out of the economy of the American Dream.  I’ve known good Christian people where both parents worked and dad worked two jobs so they could maintain a nice home with a swimming pool, state-of-the-art appliances, leather furniture and expensive automobiles.  I’m not against that stuff, in and of themselves.

But I am conflicted when I see so many with so little.  As someone noted recently, the poor in America are some of the wealthiest people in the world.  I recall a friend who did some missions work in the Philippines.  Their cost for one pastor to sit through their training was $30.  But in the Philippines that amounts to a month’s wages for most pastors.  80% of the people in the world live in substandard housing.  50% suffer from malnutrition.  17% don’t even have a safe water source from which to drink.

As I write this I sit in the kitchen that I remodeled for somewhere around $1600 (it would have cost much more if I hadn’t done the labor).  Re-textured walls, new paint, new tile, fresh paint on the cabinets, new trim, a new sink and a new stove top.  I’m glancing over at the lighted Christmas tree which we bought for somewhere around $100 several years ago.  We have a 54" rear projection TV and surround sound.  We’d like new furniture (we’ve had what we have for about 10 years and it was at least that old when we got it).  We’ve spent several thousand on new windows.

We’re living out the economics of the American dream.  And I often feel guilty about it.  If I saw a fellow on the side of the road, beaten, robbed and left for dead, I wouldn’t have the wherewithall to pay his medical bills no matter what my heart might be telling me.  I couldn’t be the Good Samaritan if I wanted to.  I’ve priced myself out of obedience.

It’s one reason I’ve said that the best advice I could give is to get out of debt and stay out.  I’m not there, but I’m making progress.  I hope the day comes that I have the means to sell a field if I see a brother in need, so that I can meet his need.  Until then, I live in conflict.

Conflicts

This week I’m going to be writing about some conflicts going on within me.  I’m experiencing conflicts in a number of areas of life, right now.  None of them are real crises.  I’m not losing it, as far as I know.  But there is much sorting out going on.  I suppose all of life is about sorting through things.  Maybe I’m a dialectician of sorts, constantly proposing, counter-proposing and synthesizing.

One of those conflicts relates to the season we are now in.  It is a joyful time.  I love this season.  I love the colors, the sounds, the smells, the spirit.  Yes, Christmas is over commercialized.  To be commercialized at all is to be over commercialized.  If you are nodding your head in agreement let the implications of that sink in for a minute.  And I don’t mean that to sound like a condemning shot at retailers.

I’m conflicted because my children are young and they live with the cultural expectations that come with the approach of December.  Just last Friday my three-year-old said, "I can’t wait until Christmas!"  We all know what she meant by that.  And that comes from a belief that it is more blessed to receive than to….well….almost anything else.  I want to break those thoughts without breaking their spirits.  I don’t want my kids to value the deeper meanings because I "made" them do it.  They’ll only rebel against that too soon.  I don’t want them to grow into adults who charge their credit cards to the max because their Scrooge dad refused to buy them gifts when they were children.  But as any good psychologist will tell you, values are the most difficult things to change.

I’ve been to four church Christmas parties already.  In three of them we did the "dirty Santa" thing.  We’ve spent fifty dollars on five gifts that we wouldn’t want to take back home, so that we could trade them for five gifts that someone else didn’t want, either.  One lucky person went home with a green shellacked gourd.  No kidding.  I was lucky enough to get a Chia Taz.  What if next year, instead of playing dirty Santa we did something to make a difference in our world.  What if someone bought two text books for needy children overseas?  Or fertilizer for a farmer?  Or school dinners for 100 children?  All of those things cost less than $10 from Oxfam.  Or how about a share of rabbits, a share of a pig, or a share of a sheep from Heifer International to be given to a community to help provide a more sustainable life?  Or what if the whole group were to go in together to buy a cow?

What if we began to really teach our children that it truly is more blessed to give than to receive, and showed them with the example of our own commitments to that?  What if we invited them into the decision-making process so that they have some ownership in it and the gift becomes more than something that mom and dad made them do, but something they helped to do?

How can we, as parents, get our children to think about Christmas in new ways without becoming killjoys and Scrooges?  This is one of my conflicts.

To read some other worthwhile thoughts on Christmas check out:
Kiki Cherry on the Goodness of the Lord and An Incredible Gift
Alan Cross on Reclaiming Christmas from the World
Joe Thorn on The American Christmas
and buynothingchristmas.org

Christmas Tag

I’ve been tagged by Br. T Alphege the Bald…

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate.
Disclaimer: I’ve never had Egg Nog with alcohol in it, but I have taken some NyQuil the past two nights. To any SBC trolls out there, please, please, please don’t hold it against me!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
A little of both, but mostly wrapped.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White on the tree, blue on the house.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Who is Mistletoe and what did he do to deserve being hung? (No.)

5. When do you put your decorations up?
The day after Thanksgiving. The wife is a real Nazi about this.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Breakfast streusel! I could eat a whole one all by myself.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
Christmas morning and all that new stuff!!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
What exactly do you mean “the truth about Santa?”

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Yes. My wife’s family has always opened all of their gifts on Christmas Eve.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Americana.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it!

12. Can you ice skate?
Very poorly.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
No.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Being with family.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Pumpkin Pie!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The reading of Luke 2

17. What tops your tree?
An angel.

18.Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Giving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel with O, Holy Night a close second.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Yum, but I don’t often eat one.

I know some find these things annoying - especially when they get tagged. I think they’re kind of fun, so if you swing by and you’d like to participate, trackback to this post and consider yourself tagged.

A Thousand Words

Check out all of the bloggers who submit Friday Photos at Flickr.

Perspective

Last week I got what was meant as a complement.  I was told that for one of my readers this is his favorite Baptist blog.  Ahhugh.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m glad that there is someone out there who appreciates what I say here.  [No, it wasn’t Kevin Stilley, though he’s coming around ;)  By the way, Kevin has a great blog of his own and though I don’t always agree with his conclusions I’ve linked to him on my sidebar because he is always worth the read.  He reads philosophy, gave me a free book and likes Robert Cray.  How we can have all that in common without him agreeing with my bountiful wisdom remains a mystery.  But Kevin, you MUST get rid of that Christmas template.  I think I detached a retina looking at it!]  But I try hard to keep this from being a "Baptist" blog.  I’ve had a blog for nearly three years now and my intent was never to focus on Baptist denominational issues.  Nevertheless, there have been some things that I feel have been important to discuss in that regard.  But moving forward those things will likely not dominate the space here.

That being said, guess what I’m writing about today!?  That’s right, dear reader.  The SBC.

[Warning: Rant just ahead]

And what I want to say is this: Get over it, guys!  I’m amazed at some of the wack jobs* out there who are busting veins over fellow Southern Baptists like Wade Burleson and Dwight McKissic.  While other denominations seek to redefine the Trinity or view spreading the good news about Jesus around the world as either unnecessary or downright intolerant, we’ve got people up in arms over a couple of guys who affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, believe that the gospel is the power of God to save (as the old evangelist would say, from the uttermost to the guttermost), lead vibrant churches that are solidly conservative, love the SBC and their fellow Southern Baptists and are committed to world missions and who would like nothing more than to see more people sent, even if those people don’t agree on every minor detail of doctrine.  [I know, that sentence rivals the apostle Paul in Ephesians 1, not in content, but certainly in length.] And we’re calling people like that moderates!?!  In the words of Bart Simpson: "Ay caramba!" 

And we’ve got those who wish people just like that would be quiet and go away.  We even have some who do not support current missionaries because those missionary’s doctrine doesn’t line up on all points with their own - even when those points are tertiary.  And a whole bunch of it is based on fear - fear that if we allow "those people" in places of leadership or if we recognize their points of theology as being valid interpretations, even if we don’t agree with them, that the SBC will fracture and disunity will prevail.  As if we weren’t already there, in many ways, and as if unity through conformity were even possible.

Let me say this to the conformity crowd: People just like them may very well be quiet and go away eventually, and the SBC will pay for it if they do.  That’s not a threat.  Consider it a prophecy.  If it doesn’t come true you can come back and stone me later.  But you’ll probably have to get in line.

What we’ve lost in the process is the gospel and our desire to see it taken to the nations.  If we are willing to distract ourselves so easily then we have already stepped on the banana peel.  How hard we hit our collective behind is yet to be seen.  But speaking of behinds, I am now reminded of a statement I read some time ago made by Landrum Levell III.  He said that when the church becomes inwardly focused all the world sees is our behinds.  I think that goes for denominations as well.

*Since July 27th young Mr. Green has offered us 17** negative posts about Wade Burleson.  That’s slightly more than one per week, and as far as I can tell he has never posted anything complimentary about him.  I do not commend young Mr. Green’s blog to you and link to it with trepidation.  Nevertheless, I believe my readers are intelligent and able to distinguish between a reasonable argument and the relativistic postmodern rantings of a fundangelical which can be found there.

**This number has been updated to reflect the number of times Mr. Green has used the label "Wade Burleson" in a post.  More than one post per week has me thinking that Mr. Green could use a gift certificate for the services of Bowden McElroy for Christmas.
[/rant]

Disclaimer: No fundangelicals were harmed in the writing of this blog entry.

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