Great Source for Getting Organized

Matt Perman, the senior director of strategy for the ever-expanding Desiring God Ministries, gives us free advice for organized, productive life and work (on his blog). He digests books that I'll never read and gives me the golden nuggets.

You're welcome.


HT: Justin Taylor

Bible-Believers and Politics

The past few days I have invested considerable time thinking about letting the Bible confront our political ideas and bias. I'm biased, I'll admit. After talking with a friend who pastors a nearby Bible-believing church, I crafted my morning sermon around an exposition of Isaiah 59.

I think verses 14-21 of Isaiah 59 give something like a two-pronged solution to a society where God's moral standards do not prevail in the public square.

For the last 10+ minutes of the sermon, I mentioned issues that I think require our attention if we are to let the Bible confront us and guide our political priorities. I also listed distractors.

My pastor friend, Greg, told me he needed to devote a good bit of his sermon to convincing believers that they should vote (I think disillusionment had set in with many). Then, Monday I had the privilege of discussing political "neutrality" with a couple of guys from a different religion. I'll confess that I flirted with pacifism in college, but the arguments for pacifism, I'm convinced, are flimsy for Bible-believing Christians. Regrettably, I did not convince those two men to go vote on Election Day (nor to drop their questionable religious convictions).

I voted today - not straight ticket.

Finally, a bit of my bias: Justin Taylor linked an article from the Wall Street Journal's site by Andrew Wilson that dispels "Five Myths About the Great Depression." Wilson tersely makes the case that free-market principles did not cause the Great Depression. I've never heard his take on the Great Depression! I was taught that Hoover was to blame and FDR was the hero.

Dr. Wesley

Here are a few pictures of Dr. Wesley on Halloween. We went down to Main Street again and passed out bags filled with a Bible and candy. It took us about 45 minutes to pass out 300! Wesley got lots of giggles and long stares. You could tell he thought he was pretty funny in his little get-up. He did check his pages all night long, don't worry. When the stress got to be a little too much for him, he tried to hide his pager in a planter full of flowers.

a Wesley short

We have been enjoying the freestyle walk in short stints for better than a week now. It was time to share. And some day I will think about turning the video 90 degrees (before posting it) so that you won't hurt your neck watching it over and over.

Cousins

Well, second cousins anyway. These are old pictures (from July), but I've been meaning to post a few pictures from our time in Tennessee hanging out with my cousin Erin and her family. They were there for her husband's youth conference, and we couldn't pass up going to see them while they were so close. I'm still hoping all of our kids will end up being as close as we were growing up, but it will be a tougher task for sure. Wesley and Libby enjoyed each other.

This first picture shows the crazy entourage of bright orange BOB strollers we took everywhere.
Libby took good care of "Wessey."

The Crew.
For the next picture, Wesley decided to roll over and grab Gus' face. I decided to leave that one out. :)

Sweet l'il Gus

Wesley the Builder

This is one of my favorite things to watch Wesley do lately. He can do this for half an hour at a time if he gets into it. Just yesterday he started cocking his head to the side and trying to get eye-level with his constructions to inspect his work a little closer. It's hilarious. I think his record height is 8 blocks so far.

The Punkin' Patch

Last Monday we visited our first pumpkin patch. We all enjoyed it, even though we didn't get a pumpkin. It was a free outing, which is always fun! They had a hay pit that Wesley got to crawl around in as well as a petting zoo. Wesley and the llama seemed to hit it off pretty well.

This was the pumpkin everyone got to try to guess the weight of for a prize:

The llama, Oreo

More, Final thoughts on Mao

My first post on Mao was too much, I realize. I cannot finish the detailed summary of Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Some summary thoughts will let me put the whole idea to rest:

a. Mao was not heroic at all. His behavior in the Long March, his terrorizing tactics at the Red Base (with self-criticisms and public denunciations), his incessant practice of falsely accusing and disposing of any who resisted his will - all have been "touched up," re-worked, or even totally rewritten in official Chinese history (and what the government tells the West) to make Mao seem heroic.

b. Mao wanted to dominate the world by himself. He deprived his own people of basic necessities for years through a system of taxation that involved fraudulent and thuggish tactics in most all Chinese provinces. His basic goal was to get his people to live on slimmer resources so that more and more resources could be used to purchase and develop the trappings of a superpower nation - atomic bombs, an air force, a space program, etc.

c. When Mao's health took a sudden downturn, he insisted that his nation's nuclear developments reach their goals much quicker than projected. He wanted to see it with his eyes and have that power at his disposal. He did not care in the least about the state of the nation after his death (or about the tens of millions of Chinese citizens who died in privation as part of Mao's ambitious pursuits). A couple of months ago a news report about Kim Jong-Il's health scare and his country's redoubled efforts to perfect their nuclear capabilities - these reminded me of Mao's intense drive to obtain full nuclear capability before his own death. Of course, recent reports claim that North Korea has halted its nuclear program (good news for the whole world).

d. Mao supplied tens of thousands of troops to North Korea and covertly managed the Korean war through his top officials. The books quotes Mao expressing his hope to grind the US military out of superpower status by sheer strength of numbers. I'm not looking at the book now, but I seem to remember that the authors claim Mao was responsible for starting and drawing out the Korean War. I think the authors did not claim nearly as much about Mao's role in the Vietnam War.

If you've read all this and find it interesting, I'd recommend you read the book, but read it with a high view of human dignity and justice firmly established in your own mind. The authors relay the inhumane tactics Mao used to get to the zenith and remain there. What I was taught about the history of the 20th century seems far from complete without this book's contribution. It opened my eyes.

Wesley in September

Our church's annual Fall Festival included a team of oxen that had been raised and trained by a great man who died suddenly earlier this year. Wesley seemed not so certain he could trust those horns.
Who knew Wesley's hair would have curls? He likes to walk behind his wagon and push - as long as there is a straight, clear path ahead of him.
Since the boycott of Disney has been lifted, I thought I might show you some of what Wesley has been reading lately.
Who does that guy look like? Folks around here aren't so sure whether he favors one of us or the other.

Wesley Turns 1!

Wesley's first birthday was the 31st of August. We celebrated his first year with a party on Saturday and had a great time! Wesley didn't dive into the cake like we thought he might, but he did enjoy smearing the icing all around with his hands and such. We had about 15 attendees all of whom are probably some of Wesley's biggest fans up here. I made some strange little finger foods and our good friend Valerie made his big cake. I did make Wesley's itty-bitty cake, which might have something to do with him not eating much of it. :)

A look of anticipation...

This was his reaction to everyone singing Happy Birthday to Wesley!

Donning the obligatory party hats

Trying some cake

Opening some gifts after getting a light scrub down.

A sampling of the decor..

Pretzel fish :)
Mini caramel apples
Origami stars that I spent way too much time on. Everyone wanted to eat them..
Thanks, Valerie!! So yummy!

Getting hosed off.
The party didn't end once he got cleaned up and in his jammies. Wesley got himself entangled in some balloons and crawled around like this for awhile. We didn't have a hard time finding him.

Happy 1st Birthday, Wesley!

This year has gone by so fast. We are so blessed to be your parents!

Advice for Young Adults

Listen to people's advice, evaluate the content, and apply everything that's good.

I've received plenty of advice in my few years. Even though I am a leader in a church, I still receive condescending advice decently well. Yet sometimes people get to me, exposing my pride by giving me advice I don't want or advice I don't want to receive from those particular people.

This attitude has the potential to disqualify me from leadership in the church. Paul's regulations for overseers in the church at Ephesus included this: "He must not be a new convert, lest he become puffed up [with pride], leading to the [same] condemnation experienced by the devil [i.e., for pride]" (1 Timothy 3:6).

Refusal to receive advice is a mark of pride. It is particularly common in younger people, well-educated people, and people accustomed to high positions.

Don't get offended by condescension. Listen for truth and appreciate people - even if they don't express themselves in a refreshing manner. Don't fall into the same condemnation the devil received. God opposes me when I'm proud.

more on Mao

A friend passed me this article in printed form, and it mentions the funny way the Chinese look back on Mao's legacy today. It was called "In the Footsteps of Mao" when I read it.

I'm working on the next installment of summarizing Chang's biography. Check back in the next few days.

Mao goes Communist (Book Summary part 1)

Just a week ago I finally finished Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. This book is engaging, very informative and thorough, not to mention heart-wrenching as it throws open widows of light onto the basest tyrant in history. I found it at Half-Price Books for $8, and I’m not sure I want to sell it back. I hope this summary with exterior links will help explain why Mao is venerated despite his tyranny. I rely totally on the book for information.

NOTE TO READERS: This blog is public now, but it is not set to be searchable. If you would like to post a link (on some public blog or site) to a review, please use one of these searchable sites: Sam Storms (Recommendations > Book Reviews), Albert Mohler, or Jonathan Spence (only subscribers can read its entirety).

Mao Tse-Tung (Mao is the family name; Tse-Tung means “to shine on the East”) was born to peasant parents in Shaoshan of the Hunan province. This village of rice, tea and bamboo farmers was about 400 miles N-NE of Hong Kong. Mao’s miserly father accumulated some means to educate his son who despised labor. His mother exposed him to Buddhism and his early education was in Confucian literature. Tse-Tung openly challenged his father’s authority often, but still managed to have his own way. Mao got out of Shaoshan as early as he could, but he claimed later, as chairman, that he had sympathized with the plight of peasants (a typical communist sentiment), but Chang says all the evidence points to a teenager who despised peasantry.
Mao received his education and exposure to competing worldviews at Changsha, the large city in his own Hunan province. During the years of his education, Republican sympathizers scored the toppling of the centuries-old Manchu dynasty based in Peking. The Manchu were a small ethnic minority compared to the 94 percent Han, over whom they ruled. Changsha enjoyed the fomentation of new national freedoms, so Mao (through a series of schools and teachers) wrote about and discussed powerful ideas with peers. “The nature of the people of the country is inertia…They worship hypocrisy, are content with being slaves, and narrow-minded.” A friend’s diary mentioned that student Mao proposed burning all the printed literature subsequent to the Tang and Sung dynasties. “I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one’s action has to be benefiting others.” “People like me only have a duty to ourselves; we have no duty to other people.” “Some people say one has a responsibility for history. I don’t believe it. I am only concerned about developing myself…I have my desire and act on it. I am responsible to no one.” His intemperate ideals for changing his nation centered around upheaval and violence. But Mao’s radical peers surpassed his abilities – he showed no leadership potential or academic superiority. He never even mastered any language other than his local dialect (picture the chairman requiring a common national language that he doesn’t even use). Mao put no effort into his (undesirable) first few meager library and teaching positions – sometimes he came bare-chested to class.
Mao did not have any CCP (Chinese Communist Party) ties until 1921, so the “official” history propagated by Peking (=Beijing) say the Chinese group was founded that year. Yet the Soviet records and the author’s personal interviews show that the party began in 1920 with a Marxist professor in Shanghai, a man who believed Marxist philosophy, but afterward came under Soviet influence. Soviets formed the “Comintern” to foster sympathies abroad that could spur revolutions from inside other nations, and China was high on the list. Mao met the prof on a return trip from Peking, and under his guidance, opened a bookstore back in Changsha to distribute communist literature. There Mao gave himself an important-sounding title and delegated the chore of running the store to someone else – a lasting trait of the future Chairman. Because Mao enjoyed the feeling of importance and the radical smell of Marxism, he rather pragmatically joined the bunch. This pragmatic alliance began Mao’s foisting his egotism on his country, leading to the misery of those precious people.
Chang’s (the author’s) next chapter is called “Lukewarm Believer” because Mao did not (apparently) personally embrace the ideals of communism – the worldview was a means to promote himself. Mao was much more passionate about sex. He had four different wives throughout his life, with the last being known as “Madame Mao” through her role in the Cultural Revolution and other brutalities. You would not expect such a self-centered man to respect marriage – and he did not. His string of “girlfriends” before he ever came to power is too long to number, and his totalitarian regime only multiplied his field of women he took for bed mates. The children born to his wives received no love from their father. Many died without knowing him.
The first CCP congress in 1921 passed with one notable – the Chinese participants learned that the Soviets intended to maintain a strong grip on the party’s activities. Though they did not like this set-up, better than 90% of CCP funding came from Moscow. Mao was not invited to the second CCP congress because he had done nothing for organizing labor groups in his province. Mao’s stock with Moscow skyrocketed when the inner ring of the CCP opposed Moscow’s order to join the new “Nationalist” group (led by Sun Yat-sen) that intended to topple the fragile government in Peking. Mao alone saw the pragmatic benefits, so he was given a higher rank by Russia’s emissary Borodin, sent to guide the CCP and the Nationalists. Russian money, military training, and supplies began to make the Nationalists and the CCP (who infiltrated into the Nationalists) reasonable contenders for control of China. However, Mao’s clandestine opportunism got him removed from his prominent position within a few years. He had another rise and fall before the next major event.
The Nationalist leader, Sun, died in 1925, and a friend of Mao’s, Wang Ching-wei, took over. Suddenly Mao was powerful again. It was then that he discovered, while watching peasants organize and use force against wealthy landowners (in the Marxist fashion) during a famine, that violence brought him pleasure. He grew to enjoy bloodshed. This love cost the Chinese population dearly over the next 50 years. It enabled him to outlast and to put down the idealists and his closer rivals for power. Not long after Wang's ascension, far away in Peking, the shaky republican government raided a Russian compound, finding documentation of the extent of Russia’s subversive plan. The Nationalists recognized the crisis they faced when the public heard that Russia was funding them. Then General Chiang Kai-shek began a cleansing effort to rid the Nationalists of the CCP and all Russian ties. Mao stuck with the CCP and Russia as means to his advance.
From 1927-31, Mao scratched his way from no power in the CCP to control of the Party and the army. He proposed plans for various uprisings and attacks, often violating the plans – just in order to get leaders of various militia and armed forces to move their people at his bidding. He maneuvered his way into control of various military units mostly by deceiving his own comrades. He took a small force into the mountains of Ninggang county to become bandits, eventually taking over the local government. Local leaders who resisted him even in these early years were publicly executed at rallies. Mao lived an exorbitant lifestyle while claiming publicly that he was fighting the ideological battles against the landed gentry. He seized upon the fact of poor communications with the CCP headquarters (Shanghai) and with Moscow to hold “official” meetings to promote himself. Though clearly a non-conformist, Mao’s reputation as victor grew on Stalin in Moscow. Mao's determination to dominate China empowered him to fulfill that ambition with the cautious support of Moscow.

Part 2 coming soon...

Why Would Anyone Do That?

Just after I put my son down for his morning nap I was making coffee. I burned the backs of some fingers; it is uncomfortable to type but the mind is at work. I've been running a couple of weeks behind in my OT reading, so the stories of Hebrew kings are fresh in my mind. King Manasseh burned his sons in a fire to a god; so did King Ahaz. Second Kings 17 says many people in the northern kingdom of Israel burned their sons to the gods of the Canaanites. Why would anyone do that?

Not long ago we saw "Hotel Rwanda" and had our hearts wrenched with compassion for helpless people who were slaughtered because of their familial associations(?). Last night we saw "To End All Wars," which depicts the struggle for Allied POWs to survive while building the "Railway of Death" under the brutality of their Japanese captors. Both movies were informative and well-made (it would not be fitting to say I enjoyed them). They conveyed clearly the horrors of war and hate-motivated violence. Why would anyone do that?

There is a theological link between the stories of wicked Hebrew kings one the hand and the horrors of Rwanda and the treatment of POWs in modern wars on the other - worship. The idols of the Canaanites were associated with some sort of prosperity or benefit if the gods they represented were satisfied with people. The correct rituals (like burning a son in the fire!) were purported to secure the desired benefits. For the Japanese captors in WWII, loyalty to emperor was supremely valued and was sometimes expressed in cruelty to POWs. In Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis both seemed to perpetuate the violence in the name of vengeance or some ideal country (without the presence of the other).

"Why would anyone do that?" We wonder about motives for a good reason - God cares. Motives are the product of worship. We might say actions are dually connected to worship: they flow from the motives gained from worship and they are themselves a continuation of worship. Or said differently, We become what we worship (the title of G. K. Beale's new book). Jesus said it like this: "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."

"Why would anyone do that?" To get the answer we should ask, "What is that person worshiping? And what does he hope to gain or avoid by worshiping as he does?"

Just Some More Pictures...

This one is hilarious to me:

A Few of Wesley's Biggest Fans @ VBS

Wesley knows Hazel well, but sometimes he likes to push back and get a good look.
Shirley is always good at getting the little guy to smile and laugh.
Maybe its a girl thing - Courtney enjoys Wesley so much she has shown him off to her friends.
Watch Jane's hand - it's going in for a tickle.
Who can resist a Hawaiian-garbed family with such a cute kid?