Is Your Church Defending the Status Quo?

Here are the warning signs from Seth Godin:

When confronted with a new idea, do you:

• Consider the cost of switching before you consider the benefits?
• Highlight the pain to a few instead of the benefits for the many?
• Exaggerate how good things are now in order to reduce your fear of change?
• Undercut the credibility, authority or experience of people behind the change?
• Grab onto the rare thing that could go wrong instead of amplifying the likely thing that will go right?
• Focus on short-term costs instead of long-term benefits, because the short-term is more vivid for you?
• Fight to retain benefits and status earned only through tenure and longevity?
• Embrace an instinct to accept consistent ongoing costs instead of swallowing a one-time expense?
• Slow implementation and decision making down instead of speeding it up?
• Embrace sunk costs?
• Imagine that your competition is going to be as afraid of change as you are? Even the competition that hasn't entered the market yet and has nothing to lose...
• Emphasize emergency preparation at the expense of a chronic and degenerative condition?
• Compare the best of what you have now with the possible worst of what a change might bring?

Calling it out when you see it might give your team the strength to make a leap.

Indeed!

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction 2011.14: Whatever You Do, Don't Take Your Goat for a Walk in Your Pajamas

Girls get caught for late-night goat walk: Young culprits found with animal from Sibley Park zoo

By Dan Nienaber

Free Press Staff Writer The Mankato Free Press

Mon Aug 29, 2011, 10:29 PM CDT

MANKATO — A couple of young rustlers attempted to use their imagination to escape the long arm of the law Saturday, but after about an hour of story telling they eventually learned they'd made a baaaaad decision.

A Mankato resident called 911 at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday to report two very young girls, who turned out to be under the age of 10, were walking along Carney Avenue north of Riverfront Drive. They were in their pajamas and had a goat with them, the caller said.

When an officer arrived, the girls were walking south and had crossed Riverfront Drive.

They told the officer the goat belonged to them and they were just taking the animal for a late-night walk.

As the kid questioning continued, the girls kept stretching their tale.

The goat lives in their bedroom closet, they said. Mom bought it a couple weeks ago, but dad didn't know about it. So they had to keep the goat thing quiet to keep dad from suspecting anything.

What Is Heresy? #1

Today we begin a series of posts on heresy, drawing from Alister McGrath's wonderful book, Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth.

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A heresy is a doctrine that ultimately destroys, destabilizes, or distorts a mystery rather than preserving it. Sometimes a doctrine that was once thought to defend a mystery actually turns out to subvert it. A heresy is a failed attempt at orthodoxy, whose fault lies not in its willingness to explore possibilities or press conceptual boundaries, but in its unwillingness to accept that it has in fact failed.-- Alister McGrath

This quote captures well the reasons why the categories of orthodoxy and heresy are necessary. It is important to note of first importance is that all religions have orthodoxy and heresy as operating categories. Indeed, McGrath notes that every worldview, religious and secular, holds to both concepts. In biology, for example, Darwinianism is orthodox. A rejection of such Darwinian evolution is heretical; for it tears at the very fabric of the modern scientific endeavor and how we have come to understand the world rendering its inter-related investigations unintelligible. In the same way, political parties too have their "orthodoxies" and "heresies," which may indeed shift from time to time, but they are there nonetheless. Current Republican orthodoxy centers around low taxes, while increased government spending is an orthodox doctrine among Democrats. In others words, orthodoxy and heresy are about drawing boundaries; for without them groups have no identity nor do they have guidance on how to proceed in their endeavors, whether they are religious, political, or scientific.

McGrath notes that in theology, doctrine "preserves the central mysteries at the heart of the Christian faith and life" (p. 30). That these central affirmations are mysteries is important. Doctrine is not, nor has it ever been, an attempt to explain and understand God exhaustively, as if that were possible. When St. Augustine says that if we can explain it, it isn't God, he is not suggesting that theological investigation and doctrinal explications are insignificant and unimportant. He is reminding us "that the human mind struggles and ultimately fails, to cope with the grandeur of God" (p. 29). But while our doctrine cannot disclose God exhaustively in his grandeur, it can and must disclose God decisively in his character.

C.K. Barrett (1917-2011)

News of the death of C.K. Barrett, one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the 20th century, is making its way around the blogosphere. Barrett held the prestigious chair of Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University, UK from 1958-1982. My doktorvater, Jimmy Dunn, succeeded Barrett holding the chair until his retirement in 2003. Jimmy posted the following on his Facebook page:

Hi everyone. You will be saddened to hear that Kingsley Barrett, my predecessor, died last night (6.30 pm, 26.08.11) - aged 94. He was the greatest UK commentator on NT texts since J. B. Lightfoot, and much loved by a wide range of Methodist chapels to which he ministered for about 60 years. He will be much missed, but his commentaries will live on for many years, providing information and insight to future generations of students of the NT.

I remember two wonderful encounters with Professor Barrett. The first was as a young student at Ashland Theological Seminary when he came to lecture. My teacher at the time, Ben Witherington, hosted a Q & A session with Barrett during class. I spoke for several minutes with him afterward. He was unassuming and very helpful as he answered my questions. It made a big impression on me.

The second incident was in Durham, while I was working on my Ph.D. We were preparing for our weekly postgraduate seminar on a Monday evening, when Dr. Barrett walked in the room to attend and listen to the paper that was going to be presented. The entire room stood at attention almost immediately as he walked through the door, as if a Supreme Court justice had entered. Such was the respect he had earned.

His commentaries are still among the best out there. He was a solid exegete whose work will and should be felt for decades to come.

Thank you, Kingsley Barrett for your life and for your faithful witness to the Gospel!

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:

Henry Neufeld: On Roman Catholics and Scholarship

Richard Heyduck: Join the Conspiracy

Angela Shier-Jones: Hope Cupcakes and Candles

Steve Manskar: Disciple-Making

Joseph Yoo: The Shame of the Cross

Kathy Randall: Burn My Ears

Steve Heyduck: Can One Change without Changing?

John Meunier: Rescue the perishing

Liberal Skepticism vs. Orthodox Doubt?

What do you think?

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From James K.A. Smith

There are certain streams of "emerging" Christianity which seem to think that doubt is some revolutionary new stance that has finally had permission to emerge now that we are "new kinds of Christians." Formerly oppressed by fundamentalisms that quashed any hint of uncertainty, such Christians are at pains to point out that we can never be certain. But having still accepted the modern equation of knowledge with certainty, they also end up professing that we can't know. So what we're left with is not doubt, but skepticism.

It seems that those who think permission to doubt is some radically new possibility for Christians are the same people who think that a concern for justice is some "secret message" of Jesus heretofore hidden from Christianity--when, in fact, it just means that it was hidden from them in the pietistic enclaves of their early formation. In a similar way, doubt is as old as faith. As Kierkegaard suggested in one of his journals, "doubt comes into the world through faith." As I've suggested elsewhere, some of our greatest saints have been our greatest doubters, too. Some of our exemplary believers have also been masters of suspicion. The new kind of doubters have nothing on the likes of Graham Greene or Mother Teresa or Bernanos' country priest or Endo's Jesuit missionaries.

But there is also an important difference between emergent skeptics and catholic doubters: The new kind of skeptics want the faith to be cut down to the size of their doubt, to conform to their suspicions. Doubt is taken to be sufficient warrant for jettisoning what occasions our disbelief and discomfort, cutting a scandalizing God down to the size of our believing. For the new doubters, if I can't believe it, it can't be true. If orthodoxy is unbelievable, then let's come up with a rendition we can believe in.

We Want the Great Adventure

To sleep under the stars, to drink nothing but well water and to live chiefly on nuts and wild fruit, was a strange experience for Caspian after his bed with silken sheets in a tapestried chamber at the castle, with meals laid out on gold and silver dishes in the anteroom, and attendants ready at his call. But he had never enjoyed himself more. Never had sleep been more refreshing no food tasted more savory. -- Prince Caspian

In a post I published on Tuesday, I suggested that the big problem with Western societies is that they lack a great adventure and therefore their populace lacks a great adventure. In actuality I do not believe that most people want to live lives of quiet desperation; They want a great purpose to latch on to, a sense the life is worth living in such a way that their deaths will have meaning.

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton led an expedition to Antarctica, aboard a ship appropriately named Endurance; for the crew would need all the perseverance it could muster. Shackleton and the twenty-seven man crew set out on a harrowing two-year journey in which they were stuck in ice and living for months in temperatures so cold they could hear the water freeze. When they had sailed 1,200 miles from the closest civilized town, the Endurance sank. They were perpetually soaked, eating whatever, and I do mean whatever, they could get their hands on. They made their way back to England in a raft through treacherous, icy seas, returning to London in 1916. Not one member of the crew was lost, even though everyone back home had decided long ago, that they had died. Of course, all anyone could do was speculate, since there were no radios that allowed anyone to keep in touch with the expedition.

How in the world did Shackleton get twenty-seven men to volunteer for such a dangerous journey? Several months prior to departure he put the following ad in the London paper:

Funny Tweets on the DC Earthquake

It's no surprise that with yesterday's earthquake, twitterers were tweeting all kinds of funny one liners at the expense of Washington DC. Below are some of them. Please note that when it comes to tweets of a political nature I am including tweets that take shots at both sides of the political aisle. So, for those of you who take your politics much too seriously, sit back, take a deep breath, and try to enjoy life a little bit with these laughter shocks.

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There is now officially nothing special about LA.

Holy Crap - something moved in Washington DC?!?!?

Krugman says it wasn't big enough.

Fox news claims the Washington monument is leaning to the right, MSNBC claims its leaning to the left. More news at 11.

Worst. Rapture. Ever

There was a 5.8 earthquake in Washington. Obama wanted it to be 3.4, but the Republicans wanted 5.8, so he compromised.

Sarah Palin says she can see the earthquake from her house.

We wouldn't have earthquakes like this if Hillary were president.

Bachmann out first with statement: as President she'll lower quakes to 2.9...

Give them a tax cut. Earthquakes are job creators...for people who sweep up glass.

After the earthquake, Democrats met behind closed doors to discuss taxing expenses on home repairs.

God: you missed. Congress has been on vacation for weeks.

Earthquake jokes are so 2:30.

Earthquake made me spill my tea. I'm available for interviews.

Maybe the debt ceiling finally collapsed.

I demand more news coverage about the earthquake. I want the reaction of every resident of Queens. When is David Gergen going to weigh in?

Wolf Blitzer has the earthquake on the phone.

GOP press release questioning earthquke science: "Scientists don't agree on why the ground shakes. Could be plates. Could be the devil."

Breaking: Obama administration points out they "inherited" fault lines from previous administrations.

AFTERSHOCK ... Oh, wait... that's just my cell phone on vibrate.

And my favorite: my etch-a-sketch gallery! It's RUINED!

The Reality of Realities Amidst Quiet Desperation

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of reality TV. When that particular genre of television craft first appeared on the screen, it revolved around people having to survive together on a desert island or in some such inhospitable place. It has now morphed into all sorts of different venues and challenges. The popularity of reality television obviously reveals that most Americans do not share my disinterest.

When it comes to the popularity of reality TV, it has been my hunch that reality television can only be successful in a society made up of people who lack a great adventure in life; indeed such a phenomenon can only exist in a society itself that lacks a great adventure. I think that Henry David Thoreau was not too far off the mark when he suggested that many human beings lead lives of quiet desperation. In leading such a life we attempt to give our lives meaning by living vicariously through the lives of those we see immersed in a challenge on the television. The couch in the living room becomes more than the place where we sit to watch the adventure unfold; it becomes the indispensable platform by which we, in our imagination, involve ourselves in the actual adventure of someone else. Their reality becomes our fantasy.

Punctuation Is Important...

...and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

HT: James McGrath

Caption Contest 2011.11

A Prayer for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

God, you are the power of liberation, calling your servant Moses to lead your people into freedom, and giving him the wisdom to proclaim your holy law. Be our Passover from the land of injustice, be the light that leads us to the perfect rule of love, that we may be citizens of your unfettered reign; we ask this through Jesus Christ, the pioneer of our salvation. Amen.

-The Online Revised Common Lectionary

Don't Let Your Moral Language Take a Holiday

Stanley nails it!

Anonymous is Not Apropos

I have stated on this blog that I don't do anonymous, that is when I get anonymous comments, if they contain criticism of anyone or anything, I delete them. (I do allow anonymous comments as long as they don't engage in critique, which is really difficult not to do since often affirmation of one is implicit criticism of another.) The reason for this is simple. Anonymous is a cowardly person. Those who want to criticize others needs to step out from hiding in the cyberspace bushes and quit firing their shots from the shadows.

I also don't pay attention to anonymous letters or emails, and that includes letters and emails from anonymous parishioners. If you want to criticize me, that's fine; but since I cannot remain anonymous in the discharge of my duties, those who would critique how I do what I do must 'fess up as to who they are. If I get an anonymous email complaining about another staff member, that too is ignored. There is a belief swirling around in our culture, and codified in our justice system, that the accused have the right to face their accusers. I really like that belief. So I don't do anonymous.

The biggest transgressors of utilizing anonymous sources are journalists (at least it seems that way). And now that we are in the throes of another election cycle, journalists are reaching into their grab bag labeled "anonymous" and throwing out quotes left and right.

Galileo Galilei on Science and Scripture

The Biologos Forum is currently posting a series entitled, "The Bible and Science Historically Considered." The second part in the series is written by Mark Noll who points out that Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who was condemned by the church for his heliocentric view of the solar system, believed that trust in Scripture and scientific investigation were not mutually exclusive endeavors. Noll summarizes Galileo's major points:

• trust that sense experience, rigorously controlled and creatively contemplated, could reveal truths about nature;
• trust that biblical interpretation and scientific interpretation cannot in principle conflict because God is the author of both Scripture and nature;
• realization that much in the Bible is not intended as a scientific description of the world;
• realization that interpretation of Scripture and interpretation of nature often require legitimately different procedures; and
• confidence that what God allows humans to learn about nature could help discern what God has revealed in Scripture.

In his letter to the Grand Duchess (1615), Galileo writes,

No Shirt, No Shoes, NO PANTS, No Service: The Problem with and the Approach to Arguments from Silence

The other evening we were approaching a restaurant where we were going to eat our evening meal. On the door was a sign that has become fairly familiar, particularly in coastal areas of the United States: "No shirt, no shoes, no service." I jokingly said to my family, "So, I suppose it's OK to come here without pants." My family has learned over the years to ignore my strange sense of humor.

But I think this little anecdote, in which you likely have no interest, does lead to an interesting point. The obvious reason such signs do not include the issue of wearing pants is because swirling around in our culture is the belief that it is not OK to fail to wear pants in public; and we are reminded of this every time we read or hear of someone who decides to transgress that boundary and is summarily arrested. In other words, these signs are silent on failing to wear pants because no warning is necessary. The same is true in that the "no shirt," admonition is not directly addressed to men, because they are the ones who would be the transgressors, since it is acceptable in certain contexts for men not to wear shirts in public (e.g. the beach) but never for women. The long and short of this is that it is context that makes sense of that sign on the restaurant door-- what is said and what is left unsaid. It would be silly to conclude that because the sign does not specifically mention the wearing of pants that the proprietors of the restaurant are OK with customers coming into their establishment naked from the waist down, except for their feet.

Arguments from silence, that is drawing conclusions from what isn't said or written, are quite problematic as we all know. Nevertheless, all of us continue to use them. We use them in daily life and we also use them in interpreting biblical texts, which is why it is not all too uncommon to hear someone argue for or against something based on what Jesus or Paul did not say. The response basically goes something like, "Well, Jesus never mentions the subject, so he must have approved," or "Paul never talks about it so it must have been no big deal to him."

Two Christian Scholars (One Evangelical, the Other Liberal) Duke It Out Online (in Christian Love of Course!)

Yesterday, Michael Bird published a post entitled "Liberal Christianity - A Critique". Today, James McGrath has posted a response, "Liberal Christianity - An Affirmation" . It may indeed be the case that each will post responses to the other responses.

Instead of offering my thoughts today, I figured I would give you a break to read the thoughts of two fine and intelligent Christian scholars.

Read, reflect, and offer a comment if you desire.

I'm going to the beach!

Even a Wealthy Man Can Put His Money Where His Mouth Is

Warren Buffet has written an editorial that was published in The New York Times yesterday arguing that the super wealthy should be paying more in taxes. In his essay entitled, "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich", Buffett writes,

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These are important words to be sure, and I admire anyone who believes in parting with more money for a cause, regardless of how much she or he makes.

Let me state at the outset that I agree with Buffett. I can see no good reason why we cannot return to the tax rates of the 1990s. I struggle to understand the logic that is opposed to it. Yes, it is certainly possible to tax too much and stifle economic growth, but this novice who plays at economics is not convinced that returning to the tax rates of the 90s will indeed do that.

At the same time, I am also not sure that raising the tax rates in our current economic context will end up raising a whole lot more revenue. Anyone who has even a basic knowledge of economics knows that the government raises the most revenue when the economy is strong. So, we could go ahead and raise the rates now, but it is not clear to me that it will help a whole lot; and what I am interested in is raising more revenue. It is not clear that either keeping tax rates where they are or raising them will have the desired result. How the government receives revenue is more complex. In other words, A (raising tax rates or cutting them) does not  simply lead to B (more money in the government's coffers).

N.T. Wright on the Book of Romans

HT: John Byron

A Prayer for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Almighty and merciful God, more ready to hear than we to pray, giving more than either we desire or deserve; pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgive us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and give us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, except through your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ who is alive and one with with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:

John Michael De Marco: Some very old practices for some very contemporary challenges

Will Grady: Why am I Nervous about Posting My Opinions?

Scott Endress: On speaking your truth

Richard Heyduck: Eternal Truth

Bishop Robert Schnase: Don't Let Worry Win

Jon Disburg: Too High? Too Low? Just Right?

Ken Hagler: Revealing Roots of Violence

Matt Kelley: Dads are Parents, too

Jody Neufeld: Pay Attention

What Happened to the Sense of Urgency?

There is a sense of urgency in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Mark we are told that the essence of Jesus' message is a call to repentance for the kingdom of God is at hand, that is, it is knocking at the door (1:14-15). As Jesus grows in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52) he comes to the realization that God is now doing something decisive through him for Israel and the world. The time for humanity to respond is now. There is no time to lose.

The Apostle Paul also feels this sense of urgency in his ministry when he tells the Romans,

The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh (Romans 13:11-14).

A Leap of Truth

A new movie from the Biologos Foundation.

God's Grace is Not Equivalent to Getting a Suntan

The Wesley Center Online defines the heart of Wesleyanism:

Wesleyanism or Wesleyan theology is the system of Christian theology of Methodism taught by John Wesley. At its heart, the theology of John Wesley stressed the life of Christian holiness: to love God with all one's heart, mind, soul and strength and to love one's neighbour as oneself. Wesley's teaching also stressed experiential religion and moral responsibility.

My observations over the years is that the church in the West, including we Methodists, have been all too often guilty of preaching, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, cheap grace, and neglecting what John Wesley referred to as perfecting grace. We are guilty of embracing a passive grace where God does it all and the only response on our part is to accept it without consideration of the consequences such grace should have on our lives.

I often compare such passive grace to going to the beach to get a suntan. We lay there on the sand doing absolutely nothing while the sun just beats down upon us giving us its light and heat, while we slowly undergo an epidermal roasting. The only thing we may do in response to our receiving of the sun's "benefits" is to flip over every now and then on our back side.

The Pew Shuffle

A Prayer for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Eternal God, you are present with us throughout our lives, even when others plot to do us harm. May we learn to live together in unity, that in all we do, we may sing your praises now and forever. Amen.

Caption Contest 2011.10... And the Winner Is...

RevRon: Since the creation of the universe no longer impressed many in the modern West, God thought it was time to show his skills on the basketball court.

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:

John Disburg: Where in the World...?

Kathy Randall: Walking Slowly

Robert McDowell: Deception Pass & the Christian Life

Andy Stoddard: The Simple Things

Jay Voorhees: Oh, I’m probably going to tick all sorts of people off….

Renovate or Die: Fridays with Farr (and Kotan) #3

Being a Pastor-Led Church, not a Pastor-Centered Church

The pastor-centered model is the predominant model in declining churches. The pastor is treated more as a hired-hand than a shepherd. Farr writes,

In the pastor-centered model the laity's role is to come a little bit, do a little bit, give a little bit, and say a whole lot.... If a church is to come alive, the role of the pastor and laity needs to look more like Ephesians 4:11-15. If the church wants to come alive, it must move to a pastor-led model of governance rather than a pastor-centered model. In a pastor-centered church, there is too much of a pastor-fetch mentality and too much of a laid back laity watching from the sidelines. In a pastor-led church, a pastor's first responsibility is to lead, then equip, and then serve. These are connected. One without the other will not work (pp. 18, 19)

It is not easy to move a congregation from being pastor-centered to pastor-led. It can be long transition, but if the pastor remains at the center of a church's mission and ministry it will decline and continue to do so. It is critical for everyone in the church to realize that all Christians are ministers, not just the pastor. The pastor is not being paid to be in mission for the congregation; the pastor is being paid to lead the congregation in mission and ministry.

The Federal Budget and Debt Plainly Explained

"If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we can understand." - Dave Ramsey

Dueling Prayer Meetings: Civil Religion on the Right, Domesticated Religion on the Left

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who seems to have presidential aspirations, has initiated a prayer rally for Christians in Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. Perry's invitation on the website states, "As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy," Even though this mega prayer meeting is billed as apolitical, its politically conservative bent is obvious.

Not to be upstaged, the religious left is now offering an alternative to the Perry rally with its own "Family, Faith, and Freedom" celebration to be held in Houston at the Mount Ararat Baptist Church, sponsored by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Executive Director, Barry Lynn states, "This event unites us in our conviction that government should have no favorite theology and that it must always strive to ensure that all citizens -- Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and others -- are full and equal partners in the public square,"

Now, I have no objection whatsoever to Christians gathering together for prayer in a stadium or anywhere else, for that matter. Christians praying together always seems like a good idea to me. Neither will I protest religious leaders from various faiths gathering together. I think there is a common good toward which we all should work.

What I object to is once again nation state politics is the determining factor on how Christians operate and respond to each other. On the right we have a clear display of civil religion, and on the left we have an obvious example of domesticated religion. And no matter how one refers to these, both Christians on the right and on the left may affirm Jesus is Lord, but in actuality it is Caesar once again calling the shots, even in how we are now going to gather for prayer.

If I lived in Houston, I would not be attending either event. Maybe I would just stay home and pray for unity.

We Always Manage to Receive What We Wish To Avoid

I spent a week one July vacationing in the mountains of northern Virginia with my two sons, Joshua and Jason.

On Tuesday of that week, we made a three-hour drive to Gettysburg. I have wanted to tour the Civil War battlefield since I was a boy, and my sons also expressed an interest in going. As anyone familiar with battlefields will note, it is ideal to visit at the time of the year of the actual battle. This way one gets an accurate impression of what the conditions were like when the fighting took place. Since the Battle of Gettysburg took place from July 1-3, 1863, we visited at the right time of the year.

I purchased an audio CD for the car and we took the driving tour around the battlefield. We got out of the vehicle at several places and spent some time looking around; and since I have that professor instinct in me, I couldn't miss an opportunity to teach my sons. We began our tour at about 1:00 p.m. and finally finished around 7:00 p.m. at the Soldiers National Cemetery, where Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. We spent so much time there and yet realized that we could return again and see things we had not.

Can Generational Cycles Help Explain the Current Political Rancor?

Michael Kruse is one of my favorite bloggers. He posts on various issues from religion to politics to culture to economics.

Yesterday he posted and re-posted on whether generational cycles assist us in explaining our current political context. What struck me about his post is that it confirms research I did approximately a decade ago on generational shifts and characteristics. To be sure, we must not push this information too far. Generational characteristics do not explain in total what is currently happening, as Michael himself indicates. But it is also an important piece to the puzzle that we should not neglect.

If this analysis is correct, it means that the large economic problems that face us will not be adequately dealt with until my children's generation has the power and authority to effect change. In other words, our current generation of politicians aren't going to get the job done. Of course, this makes sense in that the Millennials are the ones who will be dealing with the consequences of their parents' and grandparents' generations less than steward-filled ways.

I asked Michael for his permission to publish his post on my blog. I invite you to read, reflect, and feel free to leave a comment if you desire.

Caption Contest 2011.10