John Grisham - The Last Juror - Book Review

I read a lot of books every year, and while it is never my goal here to provide book reviews on all of them, there are some notable ones which are either really good or really bad which I feel is worth either promoting you to read it or dissuading you to the same. John Grisham's "The Last Juror" falls into the latter category.

In truth, it is a bit sad that I have to give a less than stellar review of a Grisham book. I have read about 14-15 of his books, and in general have really enjoyed them. By far the most memorable were "The Firm", "A Time to Kill", "The Rainmaker", "The Runaway Jury", and to a lesser degree "The King of Torts" and "A Painted House". Sure, he has written some real stinkers in my opinion (I'll keep those to myself so as to not bias you), but not many. I don't know what it is, whether it is fame that has gotten to Grisham's head and made him think that anything he writes will be bestsellers, or whether he has simply lost his touch, or perhaps, he has simply run out of good ideas.

When one reads the outline of the book on the back cover, and in the "semi-reviews" on the first page or two, it makes it sound like this will be both a legal thriller, as well as a murder-mystery. I imagine most readers would have sensed that there was some intrigue to be had in picking up this book, and die-hard Grisham fans would hope for a renaissance of classic Grisham storytelling.

First, the good stuff. The book starts out strong, there is a brutal murder in a small town. The rising action is very good here, and the reader wants to know more about how things will pan out. The main suspect is apprehended and tried. A short trial follows, and is outlined at a very good pace, with adequate detail. We learn a little more about the main character, Willie Traynor, the bad guys (the Padgitts) and some of the local characters who will float in and out of the book from time to time. The beginning is strong and near the end of the book it is once again strong. The book is also not innundated with technical law details, which for us non-lawyers, is a good thing.

I also liked the fact that some of the characters from his other books (like Harry Rex and Claude) were brought back. Unfortunately, they were not further developed.

Now for the not-so-good-stuff: The Last Juror does little to affirm the teaser summary and the one-sentence hype, often found in the opening pages of a book. Instead, what we see is a story that starts puttering around for about 150 pages, picks up again, and then ends very weakly. In between all of this, the reader is unfortunately a captive audience to Grisham's not-so-subtle chiding of the Vietnam War, big box stores (think Walmart here), and his social commentary on race relations in the South, Southern cuisine, and denominational differences in various churches in Mississippi (this was interesting for me, as a born-again believer, but I didn't see the connection to the plot whatsoever). The town elections and the various politicians/officials involved - they were in the book as cameo appearances only, and while I thought that perhaps one or more of them would turned out being impact characters, such was not the case. Unfortunately, all of these topics, which Grisham dissects unnecessarily for multiple pages in length, have little or nothing to do with the main storyline. I would say, that the opposite effect happened - it dragged everything down and slowed the story to a snail's pace.

The characters are generally hollow and under-developed. I have noticed a little trend in Grisham's books in the past few years - the "love interest" of the main character is nothing more than a good lay at best, and filler material at worst. The reader really feels little connection to the main character (who many times does not simply possess the enviable qualities of a solid protagonist), and as a result, the main character's friends and acquaintances are given even less attention by the reader. In the case of this book, the main character Willie, meets up with the sister of the murder victim, and within short order, there is a roll in the hay and then some goodbyes are said. The sister of of Rhoda was very wooden and I don't know of any reader who would have anymore than a passing interest in reading further about the character.

Some other characters in this book you wonder about, as Grisham starts to develop them somewhat (ie. see the situation with Sam and the Durant woman) and then goes nowhere with them. I thought for sure that Sam would be not only developed, but that he would have a major impact on the plot at the end, just based on how his character was an anomaly and the situation that he was in. But alas, after reading the ending, Sam would have been completely omitted from the book and the reader would not have noticed a difference except in the weight of the book.

While some people found the human interest story of the Ruffins interesting, I did not. Sure, Calia Ruffin was one of the jurors, but most readers will fail to see the actually connection of her and the title of the book. If she was the only one alive after all is said and done, that would have made for a more interesting story, in line with the title. Further, all of the descriptions about Southern black cooking is lost on me, and I don't think Grisham understands that maybe not all of his readers are from the South and would understand - or even care - about such detail. I've also noticed that Grisham seems rather formulaic in portraying Black people - they never seem to be the bad guys and while I commend him for wanting to bring awareness to race relations, it almost seems that he relishes the opportunity to harp on long-held stereotypes, whether they be for Whites or Blacks.

The ending was not in much doubt. I had written in my book (actually, I highlight and write in all my novels) at one point way before the last third of the book, that I suspected how the "mystery" would be solved in the end. I was disappointed that I was right and that I was able to figure out the book. This was not the case with earlier Grisham novels. The ending here was way too quick, and just like King of Torts and a Painted House, the reader just suspects that the rising action will at some point reach a climax. But it never does and it gets frustrating, because the reader can likely inject his/her own ideas as to how the book should end, and likely those suggestions would be a vast improvement from how the book actually ends.

Overall, I'd give the book maybe a 3 out of 5. It is by no means Grisham's worst work, but it is getting there. I am hoping that he takes a break from writing to mentally regroup and refuse contracts that require him to churn out a book a year. In the 1990s that may have worked for him, but it doesn't anymore.

What Would You Do If These Were Your Children?

You would think in this day and age, nothing would surprise you, but I continue to be horrified by some of the things I read in the newspaper everyday. It should come as no surprise, from a theological perspective, since those of us who have read Scripture know that people are innately evil and sinful and while the manifestations of this sometimes are kept in check...in 2009, society seems to value individual freedoms over societal responsibility. In other words, pretty much anything goes, and there are no controls and worthwhile deterrents towards certain behaviours. You see it all the time in how young people nowadays spit in the face of authority, whether it be the police, teachers, or their parents. And life seemingly has little value, given how some people will willfully abort children or kill someone over something as trivial as a pack of cigarettes or for looking at them the wrong way.

I cringed as I read a very sad report of a gang rape that occurred in Richmond, California, last weekend. During a homecoming dance, a 15-year-old girl was waiting to meet up with her dad, when she got lured into a secluded area where she was offered alcohol, became intoxicated, and ended up being viciously gang-raped by a number of boys/men, all the while up to 20 people were watching and filming it. It was only through someone who overheard this incident happening several blocks away, when police were finally notified and they found the victim unconscious and barely clinging on to life.

Two people (if I can use that term loosely) have been arrested, one a 15-year-old, whose name cannot be mentioned for some reason, and a 19-year-old, Manuel Ortega, who was caught running from the scene. If Ortega is in fact guilty, I hope that he gets put into a nice prison full of folks who are itching to show this bastard what a real gang rape is like. Honestly, I really don't understand (I really, really don't) why anyone would attack a girl like this, and moreover, why so many people would just look on, laugh about it, tell their friends, and in some cases, participate. My first question is, what kind of parents did these kids have?

Now, there have been more details about the environment - Richmond is apparently a rougher neighbourhood and has a high concentration of hispanics. That may partially explain some of the behaviour - I know it's not PC to say this, but if you look at any ghetto area in the state of California, it's not Whites and it's not Asians who are perpetrating rapes, drive-by shootings, and gang murders. Sadly, these other segments of society (Blacks and Hispanics), while overwhelmingly liberal in their political views, have a higher rate of absentee fathers, a healthy respect for girls and women, and a solid family structure. That kind of environment will foster these types of dregs in society, who believe that they are entitled to sexually take advantage of a young girl who made a bad choice to become inebriated in the presence of teenaged boys. Who knows what will happen to this poor girl - obviously her life has changed and she may end up not being able to cope with such a sad, sad tragedy.

Unfortunately, California is one of the most liberal States in the U.S., and with the ACLU in full force and rape not being a capital crime, that 15-year-old will probably be out in a few years, while Ortega may be out in a few more after that. Let's just hope there is some dispensing of prison justice for these guys as well as the others who will eventually get caught.

I also hope for a speedy physical recovery and for the best outcome possible, emotionally, for this young girl, who, regardless of any bad choices that she may have made that night, did not deserve to be raped in any way, shape or form.

The second story that I read today involves a married father of a three-year-old toddler in Florida. Now, here's a hispanic hero if there ever was one. He had some European guy stay over at his house as an overnight guest. In the morning, after he left, his three-year-old son reported to him that the house guest had molested him in the middle of the night. So what did this upstanding and responsible father do? Did he do what society prescribes and call the cops and let them be frustrated at not being able to make an arrest due to some bureaucratic challenge or the inability to conjure up enough evidence? You know, my son is almost seven and never once has he mentioned to me that anyone has molested him. If he ever does, I know to take it seriously. So for a three-year-old to report to his father that he was molested, any father should take seriously. Kids don't just make this crap up, you know! Anyway, this heroic father did the sensible thing and did not waste the police's time. Instead, he grabbed one of his neighbours (a heroic Black guy, also to be commended to help his friend), and tracked down this pedophile and gave him some home-cooked justice. The cops found the perv bleeding profusely from the head. And sure enough, rather than commending a father for doing his JOB and taking his perental RESPONSIBILITY seriously, what do the cops do? They arrest the father and he's now in jail. The poor boy's mother was interviewed and she, in tears, said she doesn't understand why the father, who was just protecting his son, is now behind bars. Every single neighbour, who was interviewed, said they would have done the same thing, had it been their kid who was molested.

Rather than arrest him, they should have given Mr. Manuel Vega a medal. Same for the Black neighbour, Krish Carter. Good job guys, and I hope that there is enough backlash towards the authorities that they let these guys go and drop the charges. People may complain about "vigilante justice" and such, but remember, if people had total faith in justice system and know that it would fairly prosecute criminals, rather than letting them loose via a plethora of technicalities, stuff like this would never happen. As such, this is what happens the the justice system, and by extension, the government, fails its citizens.

Scofield ScofieldRG III ESV Study Bible from Oxford University Press - First Impressions

Our new church (been attending for about eight months), in which I am also now a newly minted elder, has been using the English Standard Version (ESV) for many years (the ESV was released as a translation in 2001). As a new guy, and one who has little familiarity with the ESV, it was a bit of an adjustment. And while I know firsthand that many folks at the church continue to use whatever version they used previously, I thought that I would officially adopt the ESV as my translation for study and Scripture memorization, after using the NIV exclusively, since I became a believer in 1991. This, of course, is not an easy task, with almost all of my Scripture memorization coming from the NIV. Furthermore, I was just FINALLY getting used to the layout of my trusty Zondervan NIV slimline Bible. I have since retired it, and have been using the very nice hardcover ESV wide-margin Bible that I received when I became a member of our new church in June. However, while I like that hardcover Bible, it is not a study Bible, and I've always wanted to own a study Bible (IMHO, the Life Application Bible is not a study Bible).

A couple of other things to note...I find that with my ESV hardcover, that the margin notes are in the middle and very, very, very small - like, impossible to read small. I was doing some reading and saw that a new thinline ESV leatherbound Bible was coming out in January 2010, and originally had a order placed on Amazon for it, but I've obviously since changed my mind, after reading about the less-than-stellar quality of the binding of Crossway Bibles, not to mention issues with font sizes that people have reported. Crossway, as you may know, essentially "owns" the rights to the ESV. I was hoping to find the ESV from another publisher, but from what I understand, Crossway has an essential monopoly on ESV Bibles.

Enter the well-regarded and long-established Oxford University Press, which happens to be licenced to publish the ESV Bible, but only as a "Scofield Study Bible". I had no idea who this Scofield fellow was, so I did some digging and found out that he was quite the avid dispensationalist. I have also read a few folks who advise others to stay away from Scofield as he was a divorced man (who later remarried) and also he fought for the Confederate army, and he had a drinking problem - but again, if you read his WHOLE story, and not just the parts, you'll see that all of that was before he became saved, and after he was saved, he was quite the different man (sort of like a fellow who wrote 13 or so of the NT books?)

I am nowhere close to be a dispensationalist, but rather than less theological bias cloud my judgment, I figured I can always ignore the notes that have to do with that area of theology. Boy, I am glad I made that decision.

So I ordered the ScofieldRG III ESV Study Bible in hardcover from Amazon, back in June. It apparently was on backorder, so I literally wanted through the whole summer and early fall, and a deep price cut they gave me (after I complained about such long waiting times), only to find out 3 weeks ago that they are unable to get it from the publisher. I found that hard to believe, but what's done is done and they already cancelled my order (it is the only item that I have never been able to get from Amazon.ca, but it was also the most desired item in all my orders. Oh well...so I, still being an avid eBay buyer (not so much a seller anymore due to fees and such), checked eBay, and I found the ScofieldRG III ESV Study Bible in bright blue leatherbound (turns out to be bonded leather, which essentially the particleboard of leather construction). The price was OK, the shipping was high, but it would have still come out to less than what I'd pay in the store or through Amazon.ca (and no retail taxes if I buy from the U.S.), I placed my order. I was relieved to find out it was brand new, still sealed, and that the blue was actually a navy blue, rather than the smurf blue that was on the stock photo.

My trusty new ScofieldRG III leather Bible in navy blue from Oxford Press, showed up today and since I was home with a bad cough and sore throat (and staying up all night due to the cough), it was a welcome addition to my bedside as I was in bed resting anyway... Obviously, I haven't read through it all yet, but I can provide some initial impressions on the Bible.

Obviously, the first thing that anyone experiences with a new Bible is the look and feel. This Bible has about 1890 pages or so and you could feel the weight of the Bible - it was not as heavy as a hardcover, but it was no thinline either. It was also much bigger in size. However, the Bible feels good in the hands, the bonded leather does not look and feel like bonded leather at all (I have many bonded leather Bibles in other translations). There is a thumb indexing system and on this Bible, the tabs are silver and the writing is in black. The overall Bible pages is coated with a layer of silver glitter (or whatever it's called in the industry - I think you know what I'm talking about - collectively the pages are sprayed or treated with a silver looking material).

When I open the Bible, it feels stiff, but not too much so that it stay open properly. The pages are sewn together, not glued, which make for a more long-lasting lifespan (unlike my glued NIV thinline, which has several pages falling out after 13 years).

What impressed me the most was the font size - very readable, even for people with bad eyesight like me. Yet the font is not overly large to make the reader think it is a large-print Bible. In my edition, words of Christ are in red and while I've read some reviews where people have said that it's way too bright read, I didn't find that to be the case. The red text is a neither-here-or-there issue for me, so it really doesn't matter to me either way. The study notes and chain references (on the outer margins) are easy to read and there are tables and charts throughout the Bible. Yes, the dispensationalist theology is there, but it is not rampant like someone would have you believe (I've sampled several chapters already from the Old and New Testaments). Again, if you don't subscribe to dispensationalism, just ignore the notes on it. It is still worthy study Bible otherwise. My one observation for improvement is in the area of balance of notes. By this I mean that at some points in my initial perusal, some books and chapters were heavy with notes, while other books and chapters barely had any. I would have liked to see some balance here, and while I know it's more exciting to talk about more theologically engaging things, even for some of the lesser-known books of the Bible or lesser-read passages (and sometimes there are sparse notes on even well-known passages), some more contextual information would go a long way.

The Bible includes several very colourful maps at the back, made out of thinner pages, so that they don't start falling out like in my NIV Bible. The front of the Bible has a few additional pages which you can record births, deaths, marriages, etc., and this section is done on high quality paper with texturing, so it really does have a old-world, historical feel. Very classy and well done.

The pages are thin, and the accompanying product card said not to use highlighters and such, as they would leak through or bleed through the pages. I can relate, as my NIV did that...however, in using my highlighter already on the Bible, I can tell you firsthand that the pages don't allow for bleeding (that much) and you can highlight to your heart's content - you may see a slight trace of it, but when you turn the page over, you won't see the entire highlighted section bleed through - trust me on this one - of course, it may just be the highlighter I used).

Each book has an introduction and a blurb about key themes and a layout of the book. The Scofield system does pride itself on helping the reader understand Scripture as a whole, and as a result, I really like how the notes and summaries really aid to this end.

The Bible also comes with the standard strip cloth bookmark (in matching blue). There is also a concordance in the back that, while it is not comprehensive, is better than nothing. Included in the back as well is a summary of the chain references, a Bible dictionary and topical index.

Overall, I am impressed with this Bible greatly. The quality of construction does seem very top notch and the readability of the font and typeset shows favour with this reader. I look forward to using this Bible for many more years to come. My wife opened the package and after inspecting it herself, she wanted one as well. If Amazon did start stocking the hardcover version again, I'll probably pick up one those as well. I would give this ScofieldRG III ESV Study Bible from Oxford Press top marks.

Awenda Provincial Park - A Great Experience

Our family has gone camping for years. My wife and I camped even before we had kids, and we have visited many of the provincial parks in Ontario.

We just came back from what we felt was truly the best experience camping (excluding weather). It was at Awenda Provincial Park, near Penetanguishine / Midland. This is a fabulous park, particularly for those with families. While I don't have time to get into all the aspects of what we liked in detail, I would like to point out a couple of tings which may be of benefit to those looking for somewhere to camp, particularly if you have kids, and even if you don't.

I have two big pet peeves when it comes to camping: privacy and noise. I like more of the former and none of the latter. They are inter-related. One can argue that noise is everywhere...maybe, but I find that at campsites which are within close proximity of each other (and you can tell this by whether you feel comfortable taking a wizz in the bushes in broad daylight), you tend to get noise at night, from either rowdy young adults who had too much to drink, or those who can't shut their dogs up.

Most campgrounds offer radio-free sites, but radios have not generally been a problem over the years, for us. Awenda offers radio-free and pet-free sites (we were in the Snake campsites). At night it was so quiet.

But moreover, the camp sites are so spread apart, you cannot see your neighbour and it's not because of simply a dense smattering of trees, but each site really is a bit of a hike from the next. We camped with friends who have kids who are a bit boisterous when they talk and I'm not kidding you, you could not hear them, day or night. And yes, they were talking and shouting. We could hear a bit of other neighbours, but it was so faint, you didn't even know what they were saying...everyone had kids, so it was a great family area. Also, not be awakened by some yappy canine was such a treat! I really do not like dogs period, and I am glad that they had pet-free zones at Awenda.

Another forward-thinking family-friendly aspect to Awenda Provincial Park was that they had kids' educational programs running daily, whether it be learning about the habitat of some animals or the local industry in the surrounding towns. This is great for those parents who want variety and it is also a nice alternative when the weather does not co-operate.

While I did not go to the beach due to my aversion to beaches and my self-imposed avoidance of anywhere scantily clad women may be, my wife and kids went and they said the beach was awesome - white sand, clear water, lots to do.

The entrance to the park was a nice long ride in the car...if you have bladder control problems and are relieved to see the "Welcome to Awenda" sign, be prepared to wait for some time before hitting the registration desk. It's not as bad as Algonquin, but it's not your common short-distance from highway to park entrance either.

Only a few things I didn't like about the park - 1) the outhouses are not lighted, so expect to take a dump in the dark (our last camping experience, which was at Arrowhead, near Huntsville last month, was eased by lighted outhouses). 2) some comfort stations (showers) are nowhere near walking distance - they could have probably put more of them in, but that may simply cause more traffic. 3) Getting to the park was a bit of a challenge - you go into Penetanguishine, and go through a few streets before hitting a concession road, and then more turns. The Awenda signs along the way are very small. If you have a GPS, you'll be fine; if you're using a paper map, study it carefully before heading out.

I didn't get a chance to fish this weekend, mostly due to weather (it rained all weekend and it was freezing cold), so I can't speak on the fishing aspect, but I do plan to go back there next year with the family.

Overall, I really enjoyed Awenda and plan to go back. I really liked the privacy (lots of trees and shade), the quietness, and the stuff for kids to do. Each campsite has a longer-than-usual "driveway" to get into the site, so your campsite is not as close to the road as some are. The beach was great, and there are good hiking trails if you want to burn off your hamburger lunch.

Stopping Power - Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns, by J. Neil Schulman - Book Review

That may have been the longest article title yet for this blog. But anyhow...

Tonight I just finished reading J. Neil Schulman's book, "Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns". What follows will be a very short review of the book with my perspectives and opinions on what I have read, in general (I don't want to get too specific, since that will just cause the length of this posting to spiral out of control, and I'm sure no one wants that). I read this book alongside another book (totally unrelated) titled "None of These Diseases - The Bible's Health Secrets for the 21st Century" - more on this another time.

With a title like Stopping Power, my initial thought was that the book would talk at great length about defensive gun use, particularly in the type of firearm and ammunition that it would take to incapacitate an attacker. I was sure that at some point, there would be references to ballistic jelly and bullet expansion, wound channels, what calibre or shot size ammo to use, etc. I thought it would discuss some of the legal ramifications of defensive firearm use and provide real-life scenarios to buttress all the points.

I was wrong on all counts, and it stemmed from my faulty understanding of the title of the book and the subsequent assumptions that I made as a result. The book does not discuss the specifics of ballistic stopping power or anything like that; rather, the reference Stopping Power, refers instead to the curbing of government abuse of powers and limiting liberties and natural rights. It was a bit of a bummer, since I had thought that the book was something else. But I digress...

Schulman, a self-proclaimed libertarian anarchist, spent a large portion of the book railing against perceived government interference in infringing the right for an individual to bear arms. He tackles a variety of topics related to this, and if nothing else, it kept the book fairly interesting, since it didn't get bogged down on legal or philosophical arguments (which I can take, but that's not why I bought the book). He does a good job in providing responses to many common arguments for gun control.

The highlight of the book for me was when he listed his correspondence with Gary Kleck, who many pro-gun writers seemingly quote regarding his assertion that there are an estimated 2.5 million instances of defensive gun use per year. Be that as it may, I have always wondered how that estimate was derived - many books quote the number without explaining how Kleck got to that number. To Schulman's credit, that is discussed in length. To date, it's the only book I've seen that has addressed the numbers behind the number. It's also helpful that Schulman pointed out that Kleck is a lifelong Democrat, is a member of many Democratic organizations, and is for gun control, so it's not like he was a puppet for the NRA or something. Kudos to Kleck for having some journalistic integrity by reporting on something as the facts, even if the conclusion flies against his personal view.

I also liked how Schulman had the second amendment broken down word for word and line by line by well known English professors and linguists. That chapter was helpful in shedding light on the wording of the second amendment, wording which has been used by both sides of the debate to try to buttress their own points.

But that is where the positives end, for me anyway. Since the early parts of the book, I simply could not get past the fact that most of the book is simply a collection of his previous writings, all meshed together in such a way that the flow of continuity is not there. You can really tell that he wrote the various articles at various times, since there is just not that singular sense of fluidity in the book. While it was a collection of topics presented, the cut and pasting of various articles and correspondence made for a very choppy read, which is probably why it took me so long to get through the book. I just find it a bit of a turn-off to see that he just cut and paste various writings he did previously (the audience for these were all different). It's like if I cut and paste an email I wrote to someone and put it here - you would have a hard time getting past the fact that while I wrote it, it wasn't expressly written for this purpose (and my blog entries are written different than an email at work to someone, etc.)

I also found that he included cuts and pastes of internet correspondence and in some cases, letters he wrote to others but could not paste their response. To read a set of letters where he is the only one writing is difficult, since you can't really see how his target responded (you an discern somewhat from his response, but it's not the same). I've always had a bit of an issue with quoting anything from the internet, in a "real book". In his case, he was quoting messages from chat sites and bulletin boards. I think I would have preferred seeing him collect up all this information and then disseminate it all at once in a way that is easier to follow.

Schulman, while pro-gun, reveals that he is left-wing on many other issues (ie. he is pro-choice and pro-gay). That is his opinion, but he goes out of his way to emphasize that, as if he considered it a badge of honour.

Overall, I'd give the book a B-. The content is OK, albeit a bit scatterbrained. I agree with most of what he is saying, but I think that the vehicle or delivery method/presentation could have been greatly improved. I bought his other book "Self-Control, Not Gun Control" and hope that it is structured a little bit better than this one.

Mr. and Mrs...

I have, over the years, been increasingly convinced that the reason why today's kids, in most part, tend to be less polite than their counterparts from generations past is because adults have failed to instill and pass on something as simple as a basic standard of greeting from their kids towards other adults. One thing that I value tremendously from the partially Asian culture in which I was raised is the whole aspect of greetings towards adults. To many Asian kids, other adults get addressed as Uncle (insert name) and Auntie (insert name), despite the fact that these folks are not biologically related to them. It is a sign of respect and reverence for those who are older than yourself. When the adult is a non-Asian and don't get the Uncle and Auntie bit, we are to address them formally by Mr. (insert name) or Mrs. (insert name) or Miss (insert name) or Ms. (insert name).

The overall culture has gravitated towards little kids calling adults by their first name. While this may seem minor or trite, I think it is the beginning of the erosion of the child's respect system in their developing years.

There was a lady in our pre-natal class, with whose family we were casual friends. She always struck me as a bit pretentious, why with her "keeping up with the Joneses" attitude and her tremendously liberal philosophy - her sister's a lesbian, so what do you expect. Anyhow, I remember she was telling her kid (3 at the time) to call me "Jeremy". That is my name, but I ain't letting no 3-year-old call me by my first name. I kindly corrected, "It's Mr. (my last name) to you." His mom thought that I was nuts - of course, she teaches her son to use all medical terms to describe his body - I mean, how ridiculous does it sound to have a 3-year-old say, "I need to clean my penis." And this lady is a teacher (your taxpayer dollars at work). I also did that with another one of my wife's daycare kids. As much consternation and eye-rolling as parents will give me upon me correcting them to call me Mr. (my last name), I think I am doing a service to their children in the long run.

My son, 6, is continually instructed to call people Mr. and Mrs. (insert last name name). And his father (me) models this for him, in that I call his teacher Mrs. (her surname) when I address her directly in conversation, and I call his principal (who has changed a few times) his her surname, prefaced by the appropriate Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. Now, that being said, don't get me wrong, I don't call everyone I know who is older than me by Mr. and Mrs. I think part of it is discretionary for adults, but I think for kids, calling adults by their first name is out of bounds. I believe that students, no matter what age, should call their teachers Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss (surname), no different than congregation people should call their minister Pastor (first name or last name). I do this with all my pastors at my church, despite the fact that a number of them have said that I can just call them by their name. I can do that but I will preface it with "Pastor". It just is a sign of respect, in my view. No different if you address an officer, you say "sir" or "Officer (surname" or "Constable (surname)" or "Detective (surname)". All of this sounds rather gay at first, but when you get used to it, it will be second nature. For parents with kids, I think it's important to model respect for authority figures and even adults in general.

This past Sunday, we went to our friends' place, and their last name was hard to pronounce for my son. They were Japanese and so it was not unusual for our friend to suggest to my son, "Why don't you just call me Uncle Doug." Makes sense to me.

I know some parents who have changed their kids' addressing of us when our son addresses them as Mr. or Mrs. Again, it seems counter-intuitive, but there is something about offering respect when respect is due that really gives a child a sense of order and a yielding to those who are either in authority, or have more life experience than us. I am 36, and I still call my parents' friends Uncle (first name) or Auntie (first name), even though I'm not related to them. It's not awkward in the least and it confers the elder-respect that is so often missing in today's me-first culture.

Changing Commenting Policies Here

While I continue to maintain my policy of no moderation of comments, I have changed, after 2+ years of this blog being in existence, my policy of who is allowed to comment. It has become apparent to me why so many websites require you to register before commenting. While most anonymous comments have been civil and even if you disagree with me, you can say so, I have found that the anonymity of the internet allows anyone to abuse the commenting feature, to turn what would be a normal sensible comment either for or against my position, to one of unrelated ad-hominem attacks on me. I don't really care about this last part as long as you make a concerted effort to address the topic in the blog, irregardless if you agree with it or not. As long as you provide a sensible response, despite the position, I have no issue. What I have an issue with is people abusing the comments privilege and using it to just launch unrelated personal attacks without any type of objective support. If you disagree with something that I am saying, by all means engage the topic and put in your two cents and your supporting and buttressing thoughts. I won't delete you comment, as you can see by the many comments posted that have disagreed with me in one way or another. But I won't have cowards hiding behind anonymous accounts trolling around here looking to just post their non-sensical dribble. If you want to post a comment, have the stones to create an account and engage the topic at hand. The best way to persuade someone towards your position is to do it with facts and supporting evidence, not with childish name-calling and personal attacks. Thus, I am restricting commenting privileges to not allow anonymous comments. I suspect that this will cut down on the number of comments I receive, but I figure for the people who really have something worthwhile to say, they will make the effort to create accounts. At the same time, I will continue my policy of no moderation, which means that even existing unrelated anonymous comments will be kept, if for no other reason, to show why I have made this change in policy.

Eldership...Revisted?

My family and I have been attending our new church for 4 1/2 months now, and we are loving it! It's so encouraging to be attending an authentic Bible believing church, which not only teaches sound doctrine, has exceptional expository preaching, and interweaves the Bible into everything from the children's program to upcoming mid-week doctrine and church history classes. It has been more than a decade since I heard a sermon about Hell, man's sinfulness, integrity and moral living, and Biblical study excellence. My wife and I, after a couple of months, quickly realized that this is where God wants us to be and we are being spiritually fed more than any other time in our lives, it was a no-brainer for us to take membership classes and become official members last month. We couldn't be happier - we have entered into some very meaningful friendships with folks in our new community, some of them very deep friendships. We count it joy to entertain, feed, and be hospitable towards our new church family. Our kids have integrated very well - my son just finished an enjoyable fourth day of vacation Bible school / day camp, and for the first time, he is memorizing Bible verses. My walk with the Lord has improved dramatically in that I am spending more and more time in Bible study daily, something that was missing for years (and I have to bear a lot of responsibility for that, in part). My wife's and my marriage is stronger, our kids are getting solid Bible teaching at church and making Christian friends, and through the sheer grace of God, we have discovered fellow church members who are parents in my son's class, fellow parents we have known for years now, yet had no clue that we had a common faith. What really is the icing on the cake are our neighbours and very good friends, whom we met on the first day we attended our new church. It's strange - these neighbours live less than 100 feet away from us, but for the past six years, they didn't know us and we didn't know them and like most people in the bigger city, we all just sort of kept to ourselves. Now, either they are over here daily or we are over there. They just had dinner at our place on Monday, we ate at their place on Tuesday and they were over last night. We watch their kids and they watch ours. They are a solid, solid Christian family and we are just so blessed to have met them and have formed a very, very deep friendship with them even though we've really only known them for 4 1/2 months, but it feels like years. We are vacationing with them in August and are really looking forward to it.

Aside from that, our family has also semi-joined a small fellowship group, where we were made to feel both welcome and accepted. It is so refreshing to not have to deal with drama, pretense, and put on masks. We are part of a community of believers who not only struggle and have good and bad days, but collectively, strive towards understanding the Bible more and practically living out Biblical truths. Now, you may suggest that all churches should be doing this, but that is not the case. Many churches nowadays have become a glorified quasi-spiritual social club, where anything goes. Gossip is not only tolerated, but encouraged, and dependence on God through faith is replaced by self-reliance and pragmatism based on cultural and societal trends. I've been to a number of churches in the past 5 years, either visited or attended, which have personnified the churchy trend to focus on growth and be "contemporary and relevant". It's interesting to read about that behemothic, though misdirected Willow Creek church in the U.S. One of the first mega churches, it prided itself on being bigger, faster, and supposedly better than any other church. Only recently has it published a book detailing what a mistake it was to go in that direction and they are slowly moving back towards a more Biblically-sound model.

Our new church is a considerably more conservative church than any previous church I've attended, and I'm glad for that, since we need back-to-basics teaching. For the first time int he 18 years I've been a Christian, I will be switching Bible versions. Our new church uses the ESV (more conservative, literal version, along the lines of RSV, but not as badly translated as the KJV). When we became members, the church presented my wife and I EACH with a brand spanking new higher-end study Bible (they don't give pew Bibles there, since they want the Bible gift to stand out and as a reminder to the new owner that it was given on a special occasion). I'm OK with moving to ESV, and my Scofield ESV is on its way from amazon.ca (I don't want to use the gift Bible, since I'd rather keep it for home use so that I don't lose it).

I am grateful that I did not attend our new church 5 years ago, as it was embroiled in the same kind of seeker-friendly wishy-washy, lovey-dovey no-meat-on-the-bones "teaching". Doctrine was unwelcome and considered too divisive, but thankfully the denomination sensed the problem, installed a very solid, mature preacher from the outside into the church, and as a result, 400 people left and formed their own liberal-theologically based "church" about 15 mintues away, which cater to "contemporary" thinking by incorporating Nietzsche (sp.), John Lennon, etc. along with Jesus, and considers its worship services "entertainment" (it says that right on their website. Sad, sad, sad. Anyway, our new church is awesome and while we could have moved churches years ago (trust me, we were thinking of it, even back in 2006), I'm glad we didn't - God's timing for us was just right.

Why am I writing all this? In a way, this blog serves in part as a venting point, but at other times, I write here as a means to formulate thoughts and correlate feelings and such, very much like a diary, even though I never kept one growing up (it was always such a girlie thing to do, and in a sense, still is). This is one of the times when I am doing the diary thing.

I outlined the above experiences in a way to really demonstrate to me that not only are there good churches out there, there are excellent churches out there. There is no doubt in my mind that I eventually would have liked to get my feet wet again in serving in the church, but that was the farthest thing on my mind when I received a phone call at work today from the church. I saw it was the church calling on my call display at work, and instantly I thought, "oh man, what happened to my son?", since he was attending a Vacation Bible School or day camp there. Why else would they be calling?

It was the senior pastor's executive assistant. Now, I have gotten to know her fairly well and she is such a friendly lady and has a good sense of humour. I had thought that maybe there was something that got mixed up in a recent tithing cheque, or that perhaps I had left something at the church, for which I had to retrieve from the church office. Maybe she wanted to call and see how I was enjoying membership. Perhaps she wanted to invite our family over for a meet and greet or for a meal.

Little did I expect that I would be hearing these words...I am paraphrasing a bit here as to not use names or identifying information.

"On behalf of the Senior Pastor, I'd like to inform you that he has chosen to nominate you for the office of elder at our church."

First thing I did was grip the phone tighter. Did I just hear what I thought I heard? I asked her to repeat what she just said. She said it again - the Pastor is putting my name in as a candidate to be an elder, and would like to see if I am interested.

Second thing I did was take a breath. And then I reflexively responded, "wow, that's really nice that he is considering me, but I just became a member last month and I've only been coming here for 4 1/2 months..." She paused and said that the Senior Pastor put my name forth.

Now, I should provide some context here. The Senior Pastor is well aware that I was previously an elder at my old church. I don't think I ever shared with him about my experience. But I also did some leadership responsibilities at the church previous to that, running a missions committee and leading a college/career group. Both times I experienced ministry burnout. I think she could sense some trepidation in my voice. I honestly told her that well, I am really honoured that I am even considered, and really, this is totally unexpected, so I'm going to have to pray about it, look to the Scriptures to get some sense of God's direction, and seek Godly counsel from trusted mature Christians.

As I am sitting here typing all this out, I am still hashing these questions in my mind. The first thing I did today was call my wife and told to sit down while I told her about the call. To my surprise, she seemed fairly ecstatic and encouraged me to go for it, and really encouraging me that way - she's really good at that. The next thing I did was email my parents - I know my Mom's a believer, not so sure about my Dad, but I thought I'd include him). They shared some thoughts with me. I then emailed my old boss, and a dear friend and Christian brother who knows the Bible as good as anyone I know - he also shared some thoughts with me. I think that the next order of business is to meet up with another elder at the church (I already know with whom I am going to discuss this) and get his perspective as well as get some insight as to what goes on behind the scenes. And finally, I'm going to arrange a meeting with the Senior Pastor to find out the process that ended with my name being suggested, either by him or someone else.

This is so interesting, because I have a preaching series on eldership that I was planning on starting soon, since I listen to preaching on the way to work every morning.

I am finally, and most importantly, going to spend some time alone with God to seek his voice - I have a really nice place at a local conservation area that I go to to just sit in stillness...it's kind of weird, but really clears out distractions and I can get a better sense of God's direction if I sit quietly. I'll do that next week. And I'll be reading the 1 Timothy and Titus passages on eldership again.

My last foray into the eldership thing left a really bad taste in my mouth. To be quite frank, I had doubts as to my ability to be an effective last time. But I sensed God's calling and proceeded. It was an interesting experience for sure, but what really soured me was two years ago when I led a nominations team and we rejected the name of a prospective candidate. Apparently, it was only the second time in 20+ years that a candidate was rejected, and I was heading the committee that rejected the candidate. In looking back, the right decision was made - the candidate was totally unqualified and showed very little spiritual maturity and fruit. I thought it was a done deal until a couple of other elders and some other meddlers decided to try to reverse the decision and then talk with the people on my committee. Not only was this contrary to our mandate, but it totally undermined our committee. But moreover, it showed the lack of spiritual maturity in these other elders, and while I am not going to start comparing Christian credentials, if an elder is not willing to yield to Biblical standards and qualifications for prospective elders, they probably shouldn't be one in the first place. I saw enough during that process to know that I no longer wanted to be on that board, but since I made a commitment, I tried my best to serve out the rest of the term. Since then, I've seen other things occur at our old church and amongst some of the people there, to unequivocally conclude that there is a serious lack of spiritual maturity at our old church - of course, I am not including everyone in that, since there were some very solid Christians at our old church, but I'd say in retrospect that they were in the minority.

So when I got the call today asking if I'd be willing to stand as a candidate for elder for a church of 820+ people, I hesitated a bit. Did I really want to go through this again? But then again, I know enough about how our new church operates by its fruit that I know that behind the scenes, there are good leaders there. I've actually tested this theory in an unconspicuous way with a couple of elders, asking them some casual Bible questions. I don't expect any elder to be able to answer all Bible questions, but at the very least, you should be able to consider them someone you can ask, knowing that their interest is there. Thankfully, the elders I've talked with showed a very keen interest and understanding of God's Word. You can tell these men take Bible study seriously.

Several people who have provided initial counsel for me so far have commonly re-iterated the obvious point that our new church is a far different church than our old church. In fact, with our old church, it took my wife and I literally years to integrate ourselves into the life of the church: four years to become a member, eight years to actually start forming meaningful friendships, and all in between, we considered trying out another church. With our new church, we became a member in 3 1/2 months, we get to church early every week, have already formed meaningful relationships and are both being fed regularly. I know churches are different, and our new and old church are night and day, but that bad eldership experience really grinds at me to this day. I saw that decisions were oftentimes arrived at discussion only and without really serious prayer - one time, during a congregational meeting, a former elder stood up and suggested that they vote to leave their denomination then and there, that night, due to some denominational authority squabbles. I remember thinking, if a former elder would make a snap decision like that by thinking with his emotions in the heat of the moment rather than logically and objectively, that is not a good sign. I am sure things are done a lot differently at our new church, but to a small degree, I am afraid, since that previous bad experience caused me to leave our old church. I don't want this to happen again.

Then again, I recognize that God is in control and He will place us where He wants us. And that I really shouldn't be thinking of how I feel, but rather whether this is God's will. I also have to keep in mind that just because I'm nominated doesn't mean I'll pass what I am sure will be a much more rigorous selection and interview process. Remember, our new church has about 9 elders for 820+ people (I would potentially be number 10).

I also think about my hang-ups - I have a lot of them. I have some personality quirks and sometimes can be impatient or even a bear. I am very opinionated, as you can tell by my postings here, and sometimes have difficulty in coming across diplomatically. But my wife, who knows me best and has seen me at my worse, is encouraging me to let my name stand, or at least that's the way she's leaning...

You may say, what's the big deal? This is a volunteer position, so don't take it too seriously. Well, I do take it seriously since I think the church's leaders will more often than not influence how the church moves forward. I also see this as also a tremendous potential opportunity to serve God in a capacity that I though I could not handle. I take it seriously because the Bible takes it seriously (see 1 Timothy and Titus).

I really do have to pray about this and dig into God's Word to get some direction.

Michael Jackson is Dead. Move On.

Being a guy who doesn't give a rat's ass about what goes on in Hollywood and celebrity gossip in general, you can imagine that the constant media focus on the death of Michael Jackson has grated on me. You see, when I turn on the news, I am hoping to hear about various items, whether they be news, business, sports, etc. But the incessant coverage of everything Michael Jackson since his death, has been excessive at best.

Now, you have to realize that growing up, I listened to a lot of Michael Jackson music. But you see, unlike the majority of people, I can differentiate between a product and the producer. I would go out and buy a new camping tent, but I really don't care about the day-to-day goings-on with the tent's inventor or the person who holds the patent for the tent. I view music and movies the same way - it's an end product of an artist and the end product can be appreciated. Perhaps even the artist who produced it. But the simply god-like treatment of a celebrity is something which I have never understood.

It culminated in today's Michael Jackon memorial. My wife watched it and was glued to the set. I refused to watch it. And why would I? Michael Jackson was a talented singer, nothing more. Somehow the media seems to think he is the returning messiah, the way they treated him like some sort of deity. I guess this is what happens when one lives in today's media-saturated world, where the goings on of celebrities seems to pique people's interest (why, I don't know - maybe their own lives are so dull that they have nothing else better to do). I was meeting with one of my customers today and ended up chatting with him about car auctions for a good hour. It was great, and I was thinking, while most people sat in front of their TVs, watching a glorified memorial of a celebrity they have likely never met or do not know personally, I was interacting with a real live person.

It seems to be lost on people that Jackson wasn't exactly a shiny example of an upstanding citizen. His numerous child molestation challenges will likely forever haunt his memory, if you are looking at his biographical sketch objectively. It was telling that the performers at the memorial all had very public affairs, divorces, etc. Kind of fitting, considering the type of person Jackson was.

Also, while I didn't watch any of the coverage, it's kind of hard to ignore it if you are reading the newspaper or going on any news website today. There are pictures everywhere. You ever notice that almost all of the performers were black? For all the media seem to suggest about Jackson breaking down racial barriers, you really don't see that at all, based on the demographics of the performing artists. Further, ever notice that on the day Jackson died, all of the coverage of the "mourners" were undoubtedly almost all black, whether they were in California, Harlem, or elsewhere. It would seem to me that Jackson did not make as big of strides as people thought.

One other thing to mention - and I suppose this is typical of today's pluralistic mindset. Even in curiously persuing some photos of the coverage, it seems that in numerous parts of the ceremony, they were flashing different religious symbols on the screen, as if to suggest all religions were the same or that there is no different in faiths. This is the ultimate moral relativism, which perhaps contributes to why Jackson is so popular - he believed in the age-old "I'm OK, you're OK" type of approach, the "all faiths lead to the same place" type of mentality, in an effort to not offend anyone. What a fallacy this is. No wonder so many people conveniently gloss over the fact that he wasn't exactly someone you'd be comfortable leaving you children with. But that is the world we live in, where character flaws don't seem to matter.

For me, Jackson's death is no different than any other. I grieve for his family, who have lost a dear family member, and I'm sure it's tough for his parents, but you know, all that plastic surgery, drugs that he took and the lifestyle that he chose - well, I can't say that I'm surprised he died at the age he did. But let's be objective here. He's a singer, an artist, an entertainer. Let's not lose sight of that.

The Gun Is the Great Equalizer

I am a bit of an anomaly when it comes to my family. It is not a secret, if you have read any part of this blog long enough, that I am a staunch proponent of firearms ownership. My wife, while passably tolerating my gun hobby, leans more towards the very common, yet erronenous notion that "guns are bad". Of course, if you get your information from the mass media, that's the impression you'll get, though you'll have a tough time defending it.

However, out of respect for my wife, I choose to keep my gun interests to myself. My kids, both under 7, don't know I don't own any guns. Of course, if they ever ask me, I won't lie about it, but I won't go out of my way to volunteer this information either (by the way, that's generally a good mindset to have, since you don't want to advertise that you have guns in your house anyway, just in case the wrong people get a hold of this information).

Over the past weekend, our family went camping with some Jewish friends of ours, who, while they are very nice and thoughtful people, are thoroughly indoctrinated in anything that smacks of today's liberal and left-wing mindset. They don't spank their kinds and frown when I say that both my kids get spanked. This weekend was evidence of what happens when you have a lassez-faire, "let the kids run your life" type of parenting style. But anyway, one interesting interchange between my son and one of our friends was when she was taking a photo of my son with her kids and my son decided to use both hands to make guns and point it to the side - you know the posture, the "here's lookin' at you kid" type of gesture. She said, "oh, you shouldn't be doing that - guns are not nice." I quickly remarked to my son, though I was indirectly talking with her, "guns can be used for good or bad", and I knew she shot me a look, but I wasn't really paying attention to her response.

It seems very typical that those who oppose gun ownership are the ones who probably can benefit from it the most. Whether you are a woman, a visible minority, a senior citizen, or someone who is physically in stature, guns are, for all intents and purposes, the great equalizer. I mean, think about it - if you are a woman and are attacked, chances are that your aggressor will be physically stronger than you (as a general rule, based on on the physical attributes of men and woman on a whole). If you are a visible minority, especially if you are black, you would benefit greatly from a firearm for self-defence, since blacks tend to be victims of crimes. It's no different if you're a smaller person like me. In whatever case, a gun evens the odds between potential victim and aggressor. The fact of the matter is, there will always be bigger, badder people out there. There is no shame in utilizing extra tools at your disposal in our own self-defence.

I am a bit surprised at our friend's response. Being Jewish, you would think she would have experienced racism or ethnic jokes at one point in her life or another (but then again, she is from a fairly multicultural country - a real multicultural country, so she may have been fortunate in avoiding all the racial tension those other of us who are minorities would have had to live through. Israel as a country, perhaps only second to Switzerland, has a very high per capita of gun ownership. Yet their crime rates in the cities are infinitely smaller than their North American counterparts. If you look in Canada and the U.S., are the areas where there tends to be more crime tend to be higher and denser-populated metropolitan cities like Toronto, New York, L.A., Chicago, etc. All these areas are high gun-control areas, yet crime remains rampant. Those who live in the poorest of these areas could greatly benefit from owning a firearm as these people are the most likely to have a crime committed on them.

People Should Not Be Sticking Fingers In Other People's Butts

Well, tomorrow is a milestone of sorts for me, and one which I would hope would never come. I am at the age where I can no longer deny the medical establishment the profound opportunity to violate my anal cavity under the auspices of a health probe. Yeah, I know it's common, but that doesn't make it right. Sure, some people have mentioned to me that based on the fact that my Dad (65 1/2) has had previous issues with his prostate and subsequently required surgery a few years ago, that it would be in my best interests to bend over, and think about the Smurfs while my new doctor (a male, for crying out loud - talk about adding insult to injury) - inserts a digit, hoping to find whatever he is looking for. I will be observing him at all times and should the faintest sign of a smile come on his face, I will not hesitate to, pardon the strong language, kick his ass (no pun intended).

My appointment is tomorrow late afternoon after work. Somehow, if my company's ethics agreement did not forbid the consumption of alcohol in the office, nor did the provincial laws prohibit (rightly so) driving under the influence, I would probably be able to better prepare myself in anticipation of this extremely embarrassing procedure. Needless to say, I have a bottle of Cabernet all ready at home, so that I can quickly and efficiently soothe what will no doubt be a traumatic experience for me.

My wife says that I am a big chicken for fearing tomorrow's impending butt-check. She does have a point, to a degree. Both our kids were born by caesarean section, and with our first, my wife was poked, prodded, and had all sorts of instruments jammed inside her that made even me, a seasoned viewer of Stallone and Rambo movies, squeamish. I remember when they broke her water after doing a number of other very invasive procedures - they stuck this thing like a steel paper towel roll into her and then followed by pushing in these crochet-type of needles. Sheesh, even the thought of this now makes me shiver. But I agree, she was a trooper, and it's hard to argue with someone like her who, while historically has been afraid of surgeries and such, has had to go through two c-sections, and two miscarriages, one of which required invasive surgery. She said for me to get a finger up the butt is nothing, and I have no right to protest.

Still, as a guy, this is not something which I feel is perfectly natural. With the advances in medical technology, you would think that there would be easy ways of running an ultrasound to determine whether I had any issues down there (or is it up there?). I really should not be subjected to an activity which is probably commonplace in the Yonge/Wellesley area of Toronto. Maybe it's my Asian upbringing and the subsequent degree of modesty that I profess to have (even though I admitedly walk around the house with nothing by boxers on). Maybe it's my very heterosexual persona, which will not allow for such privacy-inhibiting activities to be performed upon my very body.

Or maybe my wife is right - I am simply a big chicken.

I have been thinking long and hard (my mental faculties, as limited as they are, have been working overtime) in trying to formulate a way to get out of the appointment. Unfortunately, any attempts to change my fate tomorrow afternoon has failed to materialize. I was thinking of having my wife don some latex gloves and perform a "dry run", so to speak, this evening, but she is biking with a friend. So I am left to wallow in my fears and apprehension and hopes that the Lord takes me before the late afternoon hours tomorrow.

A Late-Term Abortion Doctor Is Shot Dead. So What?

I find it very strange that some of the anti-abortion groups who have historically been linked to violence are now condemning the recent slaying of Dr. George Tiller, one of about 10 or so doctors in the U.S. who will perform late-term (third trimester+) abortions. They claim that violence is never justified to counter violence and that the execution-style slaying should be roundly condemned.

Maybe.

I generally am not in favour of people taking the law into their own hands - that is, unless the law has utterly failed them and their lives or their loved ones lives are in grave danger as a result. Yes, I know this may be a bit of a controversial stance, but let's face it, justice is not always meted out fairly. Where possible, I am in full favour of letting the judicial system decide things. Lord knows how many wackos are out there who could be set off at a drop of a pin, and we don't need them walking the streets, dispensing vigilante justice without due process being allowed to run its course first.

However, I believe as with all things, there is always another side to consider. In this case, the facts are clear. I remember reading that, according to the U.S. Center of Disease Control (CDC), there were over 820,000 abortions performed in the year 2005 alone. To claim that all of these are medically necessary is spurious. Unfortunately, society has de-valued human life to the point of medically terminating it for a helpless unborn child. These pro-choicers claim that it should be up to the woman, yet no one is speaking on behalf of the poor child who gets murdered. They claim that if abortions were illegal, countless women would die as a result of self-induced abortions. My response is: let them die. Most women who get abortions do so as a means of birth control, not due to rape or the life of the mother being at stake (these two instances are always cited in ethics conversations, but people conveniently gloss over that the majority of abortions are not medically necessary, but simply a means for a female to not accept responsibility for their sexual practices. Since when did we start to value selfish decisions over the rights of an innocent little one?

Fact of the matter is, I would be lying if I told you that I am saddened at the death of Dr. Tiller. While some may argue the validity of life in a fetus, it's very hard to argue that a baby in the third trimester is not a baby, a real human being. Women have delivered prematurely in the third trimester and when it comes out, it is a baby! For Tiller to be willing to terminate such life, I think, brings about it natural consequences. The fact that someone chose to end this murderer's life by way of a bullet, is no doubt a direct consequence of his actions. You reap what you sow. What can I say?

I don't see this any different than someone deciding to kill Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olsen, or Charles Manson in jail. A murderer is a murderer is a murderer. True, the guy who shot Tiller in cold blood at Tiller's church (what kind of church would accept an abortion doctor as a congregant???) is just as much of a murderer as Tiller is and will be judged accordingly. But could this be classified as a situation where one has to be killed in order to save the many? I'm not sure, but I do know that he won't be around to murder any more unborn children in the future.

Gatorade "What's G?" Commercials

I'll keep this very short. I generally can tolerate the most stupidest of commercials, but once in a while, a commercial would grind on me so much, I can't keep my mouth shut. Gatorade's current "What's G?" commercials would fall into this category. I'm not sure if you've seen them. I won't bother to describe them - you can probably find them on YouTube or something, but there is just something that is socially regressive about them. In fact, I think that ultimately, these commercials are a sad reflection of the dumbing down of our English language. Using fad-ridden ebonics, and "urban" language and body language, these commercials attempt to show that Gatorade is behind the success of various sporting athletes. But I think it also perpetuates a long-held stereotype about Blacks and "Black culture", which is probably counter-productive to the socially progressive set (personally, I don't really care about this aspect of it).

That being said, my six-year-old son loves these commercials and to my chagrin, he mimics some of the performers. I haven't said anything to him about my own opinions of the commercials, and is entitled to his own commercial preferences. But if he ends up talking like 50 Cent, then we will have a problem...

The Nomination of Sonia Sotomayor - Placating Feminist and Hispanic Voters

Well, the worst-kept secret was revealed by U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday: his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy of retiring justice David Souter is New York Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor. It's not terribly surprising to hear the news, particularly since it has been reported that Obama was under intense pressure to pick a woman and also a minority (whether it be Hispanic, Black, Asian, etc.). Obama obviously buckled under the pressure of special interest groups, the two U.S. New York Senators, and left-wing advocacy groups everywhere in making his pick. But that is not unusual, given that Obama likes to play to the media and whatever position is popular (which is usually media-driven). That is not to say that Sotomayor may not be qualified, but it takes a lot of guts to make a decision which may not be popular - it happened with President Bush all the time and he was chastised for it from the media to the everyday Joe, who seems to more often than not form their opinions based on the media (you can rag all you want about Bush, I think that while he did make some mistakes, he is a man who acted on his convictions, most of which were not popular with the secular mainstream - yet he continued to stay the course). You may recall Bush nominated Chief Justice John Roberts, despite the fact that his wife Laura wanted him to nominate a woman. Now, that takes guts, going against your wife!!!

I find the response to the Sotomayor nomination from Hispanics to be laughable. Oh, so much pride! It is an exciting day! And on and on it goes. Sort of like when Obama was inaugurated. I remember being in a conference room at work here where they decided to televise the inauguration for curious and politically minded employees here. The room was packed when Obama took the oath of office and of the 80 or so people who were crammed in the room, I was the only one who did not applaud (got some dirty looks, but I don't care). What I found interesting were these two Black ladies who were crying and cheering and "thanking the Lord - someone's there for us now!" I think from the perspective of going from slavery to having a half-Black man become President, is definitely overwhelming for those older Black folks who had to endure racism and prejudice. But underlying some of the racial relief is a sense that somehow a Black President will make things easier for Black people. Isn't that preferential treatment? Reverse discrimination?
I have gathered the same sentiments in how Hispanics have responded to the Sotomayor nomination. To say that it's nice to see someone who, from humble beginnings, was able to apply herself (hopefully that was the case and not through affirmative action - nowadays, who really knows) and get into prestigious law schools and become a lawyer and then a judge, is definitely something to be celebrated, regardless of the race of the person. But the sentiments and responses I have been reading seem more along the lines of "Now, finally, someone to represent us!" and "Now we will be treated fairly." There seems to be a sense that by having someone of your race, ethnicity or culture in an influential position, that they may be able to offer you opportunities, preferential treatment, and cut you slack, based on race. That is, and always has been, wrong.

Now, if Obama picked her because she was the best qualified, then I don't think people would have much of an issue here. But Obama encompasses the same thing that most corporate companies try to push: "diversity". For "diversity's" sake. In other words, make sure you have women, minorities, or gays and lesbians represented in your workforce (or in Obama's case, in his cabinet). I have railed against our company's policy on "diversity" and have been reprimanded more than once for speaking against it, but I have always been the firm belief that if the person is qualified, hire them, regardless of their race or culture. I have practiced this and have hired my fair share of women, not because they were women, but because they were qualified. BUT the prevailing mentality in most companies nowadays is a reverse of this: start with filling out a racial quota, and then once you find enough candidates of a certain demographic, choose from one of them. No wonder white males are peeved as they are not being considered for anything nowadays. That is wrong, regardless of the injustices that have been inflicted in the past. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Although I am not an American, I am leery of seeing a person like Sotomayor on the U.S. bench. After all, us Canadians seem to be the recipient of trickle-down effects of U.S. laws., and our legal system, while originally derived from the British, is influenced today heavily by what goes on the U.S. So what goes on in the U.S. does have an effect in Canada. Besides, I've always been interested in U.S. politics, even back to when I was a little kid.

If I recall in what I have read about her in the past few weeks, she seems to have had a number of decisions that are racially-based. She is firmly an advocate of affirmative action, which makes me wonder whether she has some biased towards racially preferential treatment towards a certain group. She has been quoted as saying that judges make the law, which is a bit worrisome.

Even though she is a Roman Catholic, she holds a pro-choice position, which gives hard-core Catholics indigestion, but obviously to those of us who are virulently pro-life, it is not a great sign. Further, I have read that in university papers and essays, she has written about the second amendment and that she believes that gun ownership is unconstitutional (I believe her paper was called Deadly Obsession or something like that). I really have no idea how George H.W. Bush originally nominated her, with such clear left-leaning views, even though she was classified as a moderate liberal. It is no surprise that the uber-liberal Bill Clinton elevated her to a higher court.

Let's hope that Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and to a lesser degree, Anthony Kennedy live long lives and don't have any plans to retire any time soon.

Comic Books and Literacy

It would appear as if this is the 200th entry in this here blog. I was wondering what I would write about, and in doing so remembered that I have always wanted to dispel a misconception that has been told to me by many people since I was a child. Since I assume people come on here to read, I thought I'd talk a little bit about litaracy, and in particular, extol the positive aspects of literacy by comic book reading.

Now, I have heard this all my life - comic books are for kids, comic books are a waste of time, comic books have juvenile language, comic books are for the immature reader, and so forth. Though I do not read comic books anymore, what I can say is that these perceptions are far from the truth. In fact, in my own experience, comic books have enhanced my literacy to the degree that I was able to subsequently win spelling contests, become enough of a decent writer to be accepted into all the journalism schools to which I applied, which allowed me to get a gig as an editor of my college magazine and which enabled me to become a writer/reviewer for a prominent Christian magazine more than 15 years ago. I will be happy to debate with anyone anytime who does not believe comic books have any value when it comes to literacy.

I was a late bloomer when it came to reading. Unlike my son, who at six-years-old, can read at an elementary level, I don't believe that I was able to read with any degree of fluency until I was about eight or nine. Even then, reading was really a forced activity and to me, it was more for academic exercises, rather than personal enjoyment. I do not come from a family of readers; in fact, I don't think my parents ever read a book in their lives from cover-to-cover, aside from the one book I know my Dad read, Lee Iacocca's self-titled autobiography. I believe my Dad once told me that is the only book that he read on his own accord in his entire life (and even then, "on his own accord" is debatable, since the book was either required for business purposes or he was strongly encouraged to read it for the same). My Mom has told me that has never read any books. My brother and sister are not really strong readers either, though they have read the occasional book (we're talking maybe one book every few years). So really, I am an anomaly of sorts, in not only the fact that I have an extensive personal library of books at home (around 1200+ at least count), but I've read hundreds upon hundreds of novels, expository works, non-fiction, biographies, and so forth). I've told my son this, that if it was between watching a movie, and reading a book, I would highly favour the latter.

My late start with reading came in a non-conventional means. Some kids start reading novels early and subsequently gravitate towards more big-kid novels, teen novels, and adult novels. For me, I was never into novels. I remember being in grade six (12-years-old or so) and part of our reading units required that I pick out a different book from the homeroom teacher's library (which, if I recall, was quite thin) and read it for the purposes of providing a book report on it. All I remember is how much of a challenge this was for me, given that I had no interest in any of the books that were in the teacher's collection. I remember picking up the Hobbit and thinking, "that is a thick book, I will never get through that". It was a chore, and I don't recall successfully getting through any of those books, but I must have, since I didn't fail grade six.

It was around that time that I started to excel at creative writing. It was kind of weird, for me as an emerging writer, to thoroughly enjoy writing, yet be wary of reading. You would think that reading and writing were mutually inclusive, but they were not for me. That marriage took place soon after, when I discovered the world of comic books, particularly Marvel and D.C. superhero comic books.

In retrospect, I think that part of the reason why I was able to write well at that point, was because I enjoyed using my imagination, and writing gross and seemingly crude stories about burping, farting, boogers, and what not. I remember being able to aptly describe something that was a normal body function in such great detail, that it had the class in stitches. Of course, this had its downside as well, oftentimes with me sitting in the front of the class facing the wall with a dunce cap place upon my head (yes, they did that kind of stuff back then). But the classmate response far outweighed any disciplinary action, so it was one of those cases of "it was worth it".

Comic books helped to really bring the marriage of imagination, writing, and vocabulary expansion to its full extent for me. My parents, my teachers and other parents were highly critical of comic books, claiming that there is no long-term beneift in reading these, as the vocabulary is infantile and does not enhance learning. Maybe that is true if you are reading the good ol' Whitman type of comics, but the Marvel and D.C. types were highly proficient in their use of language, so much so that I often had to check a dictionary in order to find out the meaning of a word. I had the impetus to do so, since without knowing the respective word's meaning, I could not progress further in the plot. Meanwhile, my Dad, who was a harsh critic of comics, read the Toronto Sun newspaper, which subsequent studies have shown to have about a grade 4-6 reading vocabulary, whereas the comic books that I was reading were about grade 9-11.

Some feel the illustrations in comic books are too much of an aid in telling the story, but there are different perspectives on this. Mine is that I viewed the illustrations as having artistic value rather than simply visual translation. It's no different than graphics on video games - I enjoy seeing advanced graphics, not because I am expecting some sort of realistic fantasy escape, but I simply admire the artist's ability to render at such a high degree of proficiency. Similarly, my admiration of comic art was more for artistic value and attention to detail than anything else. It was the story that was the draw, and bear in mind that the comics that I read were more than simply a bubble with a sentence or two in it. Most conversations or thoughts had complex sentences with varying sentence structure to give it that variety of reading flow. If you read anything that is just a collection of single sentences with a period at the end, it will get boring really fast. But comic books were not like that for me.

Further, comics oftentimes had complex plots, with multi-faceted characters, and delved in a variety of issues, sometimes touching on ethnical or moral dilemmas. It's not what people think of - the old Popeye beating the crap out of Brutus and saving Olive Oyl - type of plots). After a while, you really do get a sense of the psychology of characters and their personas. This has really helped me to transition to novels, something that I was not able to read and fully appreciate until I was in my mid-to-late 20s. Part of my difficulty was bridging my own imaginary thought processes with someone else's. To this day, one of the hardest things for me to get through in a novel is reading someone else's descriptions of a setting or an environment. We all come by with our own perception of how things should look, based on the framework of our experiences and environment, all of which are influenced by cultural and social factors. But comic books were able to help me to better appreciate how someone else may have painted that scene and challenged my own perceptions of how something should look. This is a big reason why I would rather read books than watch movies, since the books will allow me to open my mind up to an endless possibilty of how as scene is set, how a character looks and behaves, and so forth.

Based on our family's socio-economic status, comic books were an affordable way to learn how to read. My parents could not afford to buy even a steady stream of Scholastic titles and I suspect that even if they had, I would not have read it. Since comic books were varied in subject, title, and genre, there was a lot of selection to choose from, and every month, either the variety store or comic book shop's stock was replenished. This added much excitement to my monthly foray into these places, making me wonder what story I will pick up next. Comics back then were 50 cents to a dollar, so based on my measly allowance, I could pick up several titles. With gaining interest in a series, I was then introduced to the whole world of back-issues. Remember, reading a novel generally encompasses elements that are self-contained; that is, the plot, characters and so forth are not re-occuring and do not cross-over to other books (there are, of course, exceptions to this, with children's series and what not, but even then, their release and publication is limited by the ability of the author to churn out material). Multiple titles of comic books were released on a monthly basis (back in the day, I seem to recall that Marvel had something like 30-40 titles going on per month. That's a lot of selection from which to choose). That's a lot of reading opportunities that became available.

These days, unfortuantely, literacy is not as highly regarded as it once was. You see this the ghetto-ization of the English language, with inner city urban-speak now enjoying everyday usage. I cringe when I see words deliberately mis-spelled and are commonly passed off as younger generation communicative expression. Instant messaging has turned the English language into a series of abbreviated, mis-spelled "words". And basic words are constantly fouled up, even by those who you think would know better (like older executives, who you assume have been through a better educational system from yesteryear). How many people spell the plural for compact discs as "CD's" when it fact it should be spelled "CDs". People have no clue that the apostrophe is for either contraction or possession only. The words "their" and "there" are inter-mingled frequently. "Dependent" is often spelled "dependant", and so forth.

I also find it disconcerting to see that society and the educational system has now become a haven for English-as-a-second-langage toleration. You have to remember that I am speaking this as an Asian guy whose original language was Chinese (Cantonese). My parents spoke very broken English when we first came to Canada, and so anything I know in my writing or speaking of English was credited to both the schools to which I attended, and also, to my willingness to suck it up and learn English. Nowadays, there is so much accomodation for the speaking of other languages, that English is relegated to the backdrop of "as-needed" status. I completely reject this type of approach and in fact, when I am stopped on the street (which happens often) by a Chinese person who assumes I speak Chinese, I will not respond to them in Chinese, because I do not want to perpetuate that language crutch. I will speak to them in English and if they do not understand, well, that's too bad - they better learn English. The only exception to this are elderly people, for whom it may be too late to start learning a new language.

My son is starting to develop an interest in reading. While I can give him some kid novels to read, I am not certain that that is the right approach. Kids can and do get discouraged in reading a tome, where many words are beyond their comprehension. It would be, in my estimation, far better to simply transition them in the wonderful world of reading with the use of vocabulary-level-appropriate comic books. This will allow them to use their imagination, help them to visualize words and settings and prepare them for a future world of reading where they can enjoy the vast breadth of the English language.

The Dumbing Down of Today's Christians

Just yesterday, at church, our pastor announced that in the Fall, our church will begin an in-depth and comprehensive series, on Christian doctrine and foundational beliefs. I was so pleased to hear this, and it is yet another affirmation that God brought us to the right place, when we changed churches earlier this year (we were at our previous church for 13 years).

This got me thinking last night when I went to bed. I wonder how a typical church nowadays would think of a regular course on doctrine. Though I am not a betting man, I would bet that many churches would not be on board with such a course. You see, when you talk doctrine, you are starting to talk in absolute terms, and I think that the overall church community (at least in North America) has covertly fought against this for years. Even at our new church, as I have become more integrated into it, I found out that it wasn't even five years ago that our church had a major church split, losing 400+ members (who incidentally went and formed their own church). The sticking point? There was a segment of people who did not like the fact that the denomination specifically brought in a sound-doctrine Bible teacher who teaches only from the Word of God (the Bible) and will not compromise on this - this was in response to concerns that the church's former pastor was watering down the teaching of God's Word). Needless to say, this rather large splinter group ended up forming their own church (which like many "contemporary" churches nowadays, don't even use the word "Church" in their name anymore). Now, even before I knew anything about this splinter "church", I suspected that this church had as part of its philosophy one or more (if not all) of the following items:

a) come as you are - no dress code or no expectations of dress
b) this is a non-threatening environment
c) the music here is cool
d) we strive to redefine church - you may be surprised by what you see
e) we have or are open to women in ministry
f) we don't use "stuffy" versions of the Bible, it's Eugene Peterson's "The Message" that is for us, baby!
g) it doesn't matter where you are or what you have done, God loves you

Now, the last point is sticky - it is technically true, but most of these churches don't teach this Biblically; that is, they don't discuss this from a sin and salvation and a forgiveness overall standpoint, but from a "we all have hangups, it's not a big deal and God cares more about you coming to Him than what you are doing"). More on this later.

Now, I took an opportunity to actually visit the splinter church's website and lo and behold, everything on it confirmed my suspicions. I happen to have had some spare time that day, so I thought I'd give them a call and chat with one of the pastors there just to ask some curiosity questions. I asked them some hypothetical questions that if I was looking for a new church, why would I feel welcome there. His answers confirmed all the above criteria of the standard "seeker-friendly" type of church. So there ya go.

Now, what is my problem with all this? Well, I see that such churches are in large part, contributing to a "dumbing down" of Christianity and by extension, of Christians, in today's world (at least in North America, where this phenomenon of the "seeker friendly" church is rampant. This is a big deal for me, since if, as Christians, we are supposed to bear witness to the world of the gospel of Christ, using God's Word as our sole evidentiary mechanism, it is imperative that we get to know the Word intimately, and by this I mean understanding it properly and in context. Is it no wonder that most Christians would poop their pants at seeing a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness at their door, since their recognize that their lack of familiarity with their Bible would not make them ideal candidates to have a frank discussion about theological differences with these groups.

Years ago, I attended a memorial/funeral for a colleague of mine. It was quite a long drive, but I wanted to show my support for him at this difficult time. It so happened that one of my other colleagues, a Christian gal, tagged along for the ride. Now, she is of a completely different denomination than me, but I don't consider our denominational differences to be major - I know she is saved and she loves the Lord and she is a really strong believer. Anyway, on the car ride, we talked about what was then all the rage in modern Christiandom, Rick Warren's "The Purpose Drive Life." She didn't read it yet, but had some reservations about the book based on the title itself (I don't remember exactly what her objections were, since it was many years ago). She asked me if I had read it and I simply said yes. She asked me to elaborate, and so I did. Now, that book, while most of it may be technically correct, is not theologically sound. Just like my above comment on criteria G, while God loves you, there is still action on our part we must take. If we are in sinful behaviour, we must go to God and repent (a word you never hear anymore in churches) and ask Him for forvigness. In fact, in order to be saved, one has to repent and turn away from their sins and accept Jesus Christ as Saviour. It's our sins that put Christ on the cross in the first place! Yet many churches seem to conveniently sweep that one under the carpet, opting to focus on one side of the equation, which is God's grace and love and forgiveness, while ignoring the other, which is our sin and depravity and our response to God. See what I'm saying here? If you teach half the doctrine, you're going to get some misled and confused people. Check out the latest rage in Christian circles (well at least last year), that book called "The Shack" that is making the rounds. If new Christians are being exposed to this, there is no way on God's green earth that they will ever be exposed to the full gospel message, in this politically-correct, spiritually unoffending, feel-good treastise. This sells in volumes on the Christian and non-Christian market because of its lack of discussion about sin and hell and the righteousness of God. It is again, a one-sided "God is love" approach to things, which, if you examine the Bible in its entirety, is not telling the whole story.

Churches like the splinter church described above don't believe in "rules". That's good, because I don't either, at least when it comes to faith in Christ. However, I think that churches like the one I described above miss the mark when it comes to this - they are pushing away from a works-based understanding of the Christian life, which is good in a sense, since that's what Jesus railed against when he criticized the Pharisees; however, as many of the epistles will show us (Corinthians, Timothy, Ephesians, Philippians, etc.), and especially James, the Christian, in his or her new life, should, by virtue of his/her obedience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, show fruit from his/her faith. I think this is what James is saying - while what you do will not save you, your actions as a result of living a new life in Christ, should show some evidence of your new life. Now, I am the first to admit that it is easy to ignore the promptings of the Spirit. Sometimes it's just easier to just do what you want to do, according to the flesh. Heck, I've been guilty of that for years. But over the last little while, I've really given my life back to God for Him to repair, and He has really changed my heart to quite a large degree and I am happy for that; I am still far from perfect (just ask my wife!) but doing better now, thanks!

You know, it's amazing, one of the things which will always elicit a reaction as asking Christians about John MacArthur, who is considered one of the top Bible teachers in the world today and is Pastor and Bible teacher for Grace Community Church in California. Do I agree with everything he says? No. But I think that for one to argue against him, it is necessary to exercise the same amount (or more) of Biblical literacy that he has. Which means that Christians need to go into their Bibles more if you want to counter a point of contention - it's not good enough to just say, "well, I just don't feel...". For the past two months, I've been listening to a Bible Questions and Answers series, which features Pastor MacArthur answering Bible and Chrsitianity-related questions posed from MacArthur's congregation of about 10,000. The Bible Q&A sessions are unscripted and are based over 37 years (there's 55 CDs and counting of pure Bible questions and answers). I love listening to these, not because I like hearing MacArthur's voice, but because he always answers his questions with Biblical support and I learn something new. It also points me back to Scripture and gets me into the Word more than I've been for years. None of his questions are responded with "I think..." unless there is no clear Biblical reference to it. MacArthur has 40+ years of sermons available for download and study and has written 70+ books. To me, this is the kind of love and interest in God's Word that I'd like to have in my own life. Yet, you know, there are a lot of people who don't like MacArthur, which is fine, since I don't expect everyone to agree on everything, but it's always for one of the following reasons: a) he's boring. b) it's too indepth and c) not much contemporary application.

You see what I'm saying here? Today's Christians will find expository preaching boring, you know why? As the Bible says, they are infant Christians in their understanding, and infants drink, what? Infant milk! If these Christians go to a church in which in-depth expository and contextual Bible study is hardly contemplated, much less practiced, they are going to turn out to be not very well grounded on their doctrinal foundations, if at all.

Based on the complaints noted above regarding MacArthur, I have found the reverse to be true when it comes to in-depth Bible study recently in my life. If the study is done properly in understanding the historical context and cultural context and religious context, it really can and does bring the passage to life in that we better understand why it was said the way it was said and why it was said. People nowadays can take any verse out of context from the Bible. Of course, when this is done, no one has any clue as to why this archaic Bible verse is quoted, but their motivation to find out is stymied by their culturally-taught desire not to question anything - so they blindly recite verses without any passion and understanding behind it. A quick example - 1 Corinthians 3:16 is often used on me to tell me that I should have never gotten my tattoos. It says that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and if one destroys the body, God will destroy him. There are two problems with this: a) this verse is not saying this (even though for years I thought it did). If you look at the context of this passage (ie. the chapter before and after as well as the historical context of the Corintian church at the time), you'll see that Paul was writing to the Corinthian church (the body of believers as referenced) about divisions in the church and how some in that church at that time was thinking that Paul was the head of the church or Apollos was, etc.) The church is what is referenced to by the word "body" (and this is confirmed by examining the Greek word's origins and meaning). Based on what the topic was before and after that passage, it makes absolutely not sense why Paul would all of the sudden stop what he is saying and talk about the physical body, when in the context of that passage, body mean "the church". b) I did my tattoos before I was a Christian, so it's not like I knew any better. But regardless, my personal opinion of tattoos is neither here nor there since I don't see it as a paramount theological issue, but I would question Christians who get tattoos of things that are obviously not pleasing to God (such as evil symbols, witchcraft things, sexual things, etc.).

While it is getting a bit off topic, my point about is to demonstrate that most Christians don't even bother (or know how) to look at a passage contextually. And churches nowadays are not teaching this, unfortunately. And I've visted more than a few churches to be able to make this comment with some confidence.

That being said, one of the best sermons I heard at my previous church was preached by the, at the time 30-year-old or so pastoral intern who taught on the passage about the Good Samaritan. I've heard and read that passage many times, but this time, he spent time looking at the context of that passage. At face value, we often read contemporary things into Scirptural text. For me, I always envisioned a straight country road where the guy was attacked. And I just saw that the guys who passed him (except for the Samaritan) were simply arrogant, snobby guys who didn't want to help him. It was until it was told the type of winding angled road and that it was dangerous because of the hiding spots in the areas the road that I started realizing that this was no stroll in the park. And also the relationships that the Jews and Samaritans had was not simply that they didn't associate with one another, but when you discovered why and the societial stigmas that will result, etc., it helps you to appreciate the account better, as well as understand the setting from which our Biblical stories come.

But most churches don't teach this, and if they do they will teach it once in a blue moon. Instead, we get, as I witnessed in 2006 in a church in Alberta, a quick sermon (and these churches always have quick sermons since they seem to think that people have more important things to do rather than study God's Word - if nothing else, they are making their real intentions known) about some lovey-dovey topic that will not cause any offense and uncomfortableness with the congregants. The topic was something like "What If Jesus Had a Blackberry?" What an utterly stupid topic it was, and I remember telling my cousin, who asked me about what I thought of the sermon, that "to be honest, it wasn't very good." Honestly, if you have to start reading your 21st century viewpoint back into the Biblical text, you are in a world of hurt.

The pursuit of a holy life is not taught in most churches today. This is true. I am seeing more and more instances of non married Christian couples vacationing together by themselves. That seems to be OK with other Christians, few of whom speak up. When was the last time you heard of a church talking about waiting until marriage to have sex? Just yesterday, our new church's pastor preached a challenging sermon about integrity and watching what one watches, and watching what they say (ie. slander, lying, gossip). Are those warnings taught in any churches nowadays, especially in light of the fact that the church has historically been a place where such sins are openly practiced? I have found many Christians nowadays to be much more accepting of other Christians who use foul language and swearing - even I have been known to historically use it without anyone really chastizing me. That is not good. As with anything else in the Christian life, it's better to surround yourself in an environment where you don't get exposed to things that are not good for your spiritual health. If you aren't in a good church that encourages you to pursue a life of Godly living, find one that does.

Many churches nowadays are not teaching doctrine (they say it's divisive, which is true, but that's by design - no one will be convicted of anything if there's no objective standard by which to measure their behaviour). Their challenge is whether they will be obedient and submit to God's authority in the Bible, even if it makes them uncomfortable. Case in point - one of the reasons we left our previous church was their hiring of a female pastor. My wife and I felt that God's Word is clear on this issue and while there were many things which we could tolerate (and even that I reflect, is probably not good as we probably should have gone with our convictions earlier), I think this issue was really what did it for us, though it was one of a few other doctrinal and Biblical issues. To me, I think many people on this issue (and not just at our previous church, but in churches around the country) want to appeal to a worldly sense of equality and not offend the feminists out there. They will always tell you that the passages in Timothy and Titus that deal with pastors are outdated or antiquated, or it doesn't fit their secular, feminist interpretation. For us, even when we ultimately did not agree, I think it was more important for us to maintain peaceful relations with our old church and not rail on them but simply say that we disagree and move on and wish them the best. Personally, it has been almost 3 months now and I am glad we made the switch, for our spiritual health's sake.

Going forward, I don't expect churches across Canada and especially across the USA, to change to a Biblically focussed, expository preaching-based system, where God's Word is studied vigorously and properly. But if there is some encouragement to glean, it can be seen in how the once seeker-friendly Willow Creek church, in the past few years, recognized in a published paper, that they were trying to "run church" all the wrong ways, opting to lure people in by marketing gimmacks and a watered-down gospel, rather than preach the Gospel with all of its challenges to the status quo and its call for changing how one thinks and behaves. People nowadays often cite the situation where a woman who was caught in adultery was brought before Jesus and how Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." What these same people conveniently leave out is Jesus' charge to the woman near the end of the discourse, to "Go and sin no more". Jesus challenges our works-based mentality but also indicates that action is required on our part and the first step is to humbly come before God and admit our shortcomings and our sinful actions and attitudes.