"Well, according to your chart, you should be dead."
This chart was rolled out by Republicans yesterday and I stole it from Dan at Necessary Roughness. This isn't health care, it's inhuman bureaucracy.
I would go so far as to say that the Democrats' plan for health care "reform" is a gross violation of the Hippocratic Oath.
And while the phrase "Above all, do no harm" is not in the Hippocratic Oath, this government takeover plan does nothing bu harm everyone across the board.
The Democrat plan here is to make universal health care an entitlement for all. They want it to be bigger than Social Security - which, by the way, is going bankrupt - a massive program that people will rely upon that we will never be able to get rid of.
And you always pay for something, especially if you're not paying with money. You pay for this health care plan not just with tax dollars, you pay for it with your freedom to make your own decisions. Remember the phrase "He who pays the piper calls the tune." The person who pays the bills has final say over how the money is spent. If some bureaucrat says you can't have an operation, tough luck. The true cost of government health care is your freedom to make any kind of health care choices for yourself.
And maybe this wouldn't happen right away, but at some point, the government could tell you "We can't afford you to have another baby. So don't get pregnant - and if you do, report to your nearest Planned Parenthood 'clinic' to donate your embryonic stem cells." This plan could very well lead the United States to Chinese family size restrictions and government-forced abortions.
Finally, numerous Democrats are saying that we must pass this bill YESTERDAY. To the likes of Rahm Emmanuel, Nancy Pelosi, David Axelrod and others, we have to do this NOW. Remember the mortgage crisis? People got themselves into financial obligations they neither understood nor could afford, in large part because they didn't read the documents. How is rushing through a bill like this any different?
Now that some time has passed since Sarah Palin announced she would resign as governor, I've come across analysis from Patrick at HotAir that makes sense - Sarah Palin is running for Congress, just not as a candidate.
Richard Nixon campaigned hard for Republican congressional candidates across the country for the 1966 midterm elections. This helped him secure the party nomination in 1968 and in turn the White House.
Fast-forward to November 2008, AFTER the presidential election: U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss secured the most votes but received less than 50% of the votes, triggering a run-off election on December 2. Palin, even though she was on the losing presidential ticket, campaigned for Chambliss around the state. See this video of Saxby being interviewed on Fox & Friends:
"She was dynamite... I can't overstate the impact she had down here... When she walks in a room, folks just explode. They really did pack the house wherever we went... She's got a great future in the Republican Party."
Sarah Palin is still very popular among conservatives. She's raising significant money and a lot of it is actually coming from people making donations under $200. She will be a powerful force in the midterm elections. She's taking what she did in post-election Georgia and taking it nationwide.
And the fact that she isn't going to finish out her term in Alaska should not trouble anyone. Here's what I take away from it - Sarah Palin is not a egotistical maniac who thinks that she is the answer to all of Alaska's problems. She does not believe that her state will go to hell in a hand basket if she's not at the helm. And hey, the Lieutenant Governor was her running mate. If she didn't think he was up to the job, she would not have run with him in the first place. He was elected, too, dontcha know. Some will complain that she's abandoning her vocation, but I think there's something to be said for voluntarily letting go of power when you can continue to exert it.
And Sarah Palin had to examine, as all people should from time to time, her life and figure out what it is she should be doing with her life right now and if she can make the greatest contribution in her current position or in some other capacity. I think Sarah drew the conclusion that the conservative cause has a greater need for her than the Alaskan state government, and that she will leave her office in capable hands.
It doesn't necessarily mean she's running for President in 2012. What matters to me right now is that she's a conservative reformer. She's reforming the party, she's reforming Congress by campaigning for conservative candidates - she's running on principles. I don't care about who is running for president. I care about principles and policies. I care about repairing the damage done to our country by out of control spending, the erosion of freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility, and the increasing power and control of the government over our lives.
Sarah Palin is going to campaign across the country to fight for conservative ideas and ideals.
Now it makes sense, and I think it's an excellent move.
I am not much into sports anymore. I haven't been for years. But I've been a fairweather Wisconsin sports fan (see above about not being much into sports anymore).
Before the strike of 1994, I was a pretty big Milwaukee Brewers fan.
We watched the Home Run Derby yesterday (incidentally my in-laws live in Saint Louis County, but we're in Florida with them while the All-Star Game is in Saint Louis) and I was rooting for Prince Fielder (and Albert Pujols) and I was glad that he won.
But you know, I really haven't felt any connection or loyalty to the Brewers. Not that I'm *disloyal* or anything like that, I'm just not engaged. When I think of the Brewers, I think of Robin Yount, Jim Gantner, Paul Molitor, as well as B.J. Surhoff, Kevin Seitzer, Pat Listach, Dante Bichette, Greg Vaughn (the fan-created "Vaughn's Valley" banner was far superior to the one officially installed by the organization the next season), Gary Sheffield.
But there is one constant of the Brewers, and that is Bob Uecker. The man is a living legend. At this point, I don't think there's an honor that hasn't been bestowed upon him, so the most we can do is simply to tune in to the Brewers Radio Network and enjoy his brilliance.
And now that I'm a Saint Louis resident, if I can find the money to do it, I would like to have a customized jersey made that I can wear if I take in a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium - it will be #9 and the last name on the back will be Uecker, because he played for the 1964 Cardinals team that won the World Series. It's a way to blend in with the locals while remaining loyal to my roots. Though this jersey would likely be of the current Cardinals design, not a "throwback" from over forty years ago.
Vacation on the Gulf Coast is great, even when it rains! I'll post some pictures eventually, but for now all I will say is that if there is a group out there willing to support me after I graduate from Seminary, I'd be happy to start a congregation in Destin, FL.
Although we're technically staying in Miramar Beach.
Also, rum is best as a mixer. Straight rum? It's drinkable, but not recommended. I just added orange juice - Rum Screwdriver, I guess. Works just fine.
So we're on vacation this week in Florida. We're on the Gulf Coast all week. Not going to Disney World or anything, just chilling out and relaxing in this nice house. There are ten or so of us here altogether on this family vacation.
In addition to the Greek stuff I brought (might as well get a head start on it before the fall quarter at the Seminary), I think I might just study up this week for my General License for ham radio. I have a Technician License which doesn't give me the privileges to transmit directly from Missouri to Wisconsin (where my parents and grandparents live). A General License would allow me that luxury.
And today is Sunday. We won't be going to church (we got in at 1o:00pm last night) so I will be leading the family in Matins (or Vespers depending on when we wake up) and doing the readings appointed for this Sunday from the three-year lectionary. My "sermon" will most likely be from Ephesians 1 as it is the easiest text to speak about Christ in terms of who He is and what He has done for us. The other readings are more challenging, so I'm taking the easy route - especially since I have very limited training in homiletics.
I was on twitter last night and started thinking about Russ Carnahan's re-election prospects in 2010. As you probably know, Russ voted for Cap & Trade which will jack up taxes and energy costs, killing jobs and small business. It's pretty much the largest tax increase in the history of the United States.
Like I said previously, I liked Chris Sander who ran against Russ back in 2008. I hope that he runs again, but I won't blame him if he doesn't - he did not get the support of the Missouri GOP or of the National Republican Congressional Committee that he should have.
It seems as though we the people, despite the party wizards of smart, will have to do something ourselves to make this a competitive district.
We've had two tea parties in the Saint Louis area, and as many have pointed out, it's time to start focusing our energy on action. What could we do? How can we have an impact? Conventional wisdom says that anybody who goes up against someone with a big name like Carnahan stands no chance and that he will be in office until he resigns or dies.
The best way I can think of to show our dissatisfaction with the incumbent is for EVERY ELIGIBLE PERSON who lives in Carnahan's district to file papers to run against him in 2010. The legal requirements are three: you must be at least 25 years old, you must have been a citizen of the United States for seven years, and you must reside in the State of Missouri. Here's how to file.
Tea Parties are great, and quite frankly they are necessary. But I think a massive candidacy filing against Russ Carnahan would raise small government visibility to a new level. And we won't really be running against each other, we're running on less meddlesome government, less oppressive taxes, policies that don't destroy jobs, more freedom, more prosperity, and all that good stuff. Ideally, the result of this movement would be for an anti-cap-and-tax candidate to get more votes than Russ Carnahan on Election Day in November 2010. If I were to declare my candidacy, I would pledge to support whoever emerges victorious on Primary Day so long as that person is pro-liberty and anti cap-and-trade, etc.
The MOGOP should start a website like everybodyagainstrusscarnahan.com to keep track of all the candidates.
I think this would be freakin' awesome. And a primary that large should scare up some serious candidates in addition to those of us who at the very least want to send a message to Washington. And just because you run, that doesn't mean you have to vote for yourself on Primary Day. If Chris Sander is one of the many candidates, I would probably vote for him.
So what do you say? I'll run if everybody else does!
A lot of people are running for Roy Blunt's U.S. House seat, but that's an open seat since he's running for the Senate. Let's put them to shame and get over 100 candidates for the GOP Primary!
Why? BECAUSE RUSS "CAP & TRADE" CARNAHAN IS BAD FOR MISSOURI!
Rumors have been flying for a while that Governor Jim Doyle will either not seek re-election or that he will take another job and resign before the end of his current term. Whether he runs again or not, here's how I see it:
Even the unlikely team of Menards Guy / Crazy TV Lenny should be able to beat Doyle / Lawton based simply on the state of the Wisconsin economy under Doyle's tenure and the current State budget situation.
By the way, The Brothers Main would lose in the primary against Szmanda / Mattioli.
Also, can we all agree that the lame, weak, wimpy, milktoast generic American ads suck and that their business would improve should they put Lenny back on the air and give away bikes (or other stuff) again?
Rev. Dr. Dean Nadasdy, 4th VP of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod was the synodical representative sent to the Ohio District Convention in place of SP Gerald Kieschnick. Here is a lengthy quote from the Brothers of John the Steadfast blog:
President Kieschnick couldn’t attend so he sent Dr. Dean Nadasdy, 4th VP, in his place. During the Q&A session, someone asked if he could clear up the rumors about the selling of various synodical assets. In his response, he said that he thought the Synod should sell both seminaries and go to a divinity school model at the various Concordias. With the stunned silence of the assembly, he went on to say that seminaries are too expensive and that the Synod needs to reduce duplication.
Although he made sure to state that the firesale was his opinion, obviously Nadasdy wouldn’t be publicly making such comments if they weren’t realistically on the table and in discussion at the Purple Palace.
Initial thoughts in no particular order:
I think what he means by "divinity school model" is that of our ten Concordia University System Schools (Wisconsin, Nebraska, California, Bronxville, Selma, Portland, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Saint Paul, and Austin) some or all would add a graduate school, a Divinity School. Under this model, when I received my undergrad degree from Concordia University Wisconsin, instead of moving to Saint Louis, MO or Fort Wayne, IN, I could simply stay at CUW to earn my Master of Divinity degree, unless I wanted to go to one of the other Concordias that had a divinity school.
He's obviously looking at this from a cost-saving perspective. In his mind, it's not worth the expense of having two seminaries, both in the Midwest. And it would be "more fair" to close both of them instead of just one of them, assuming that the Synod needs to close and sell any seminaries at all.
Currently, the 35 districts (think dioceses) of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod each oversees implementation of the Specific Ministry Pastor program, which is a very non-traditional way of pastoral formation. To me this seems unpractical and overburdening our district presidents (think bishops, kinda) who have enough on their plate as it is. The "divinity school model" would give us up to ten locations across the country where a guy could study for the Ministry. In theory, it's easier to go to the nearest Concordia (or just do distance learning through one of the Concordias) than to pull up your roots and move to Seminary.
Who do they think would even want to buy the seminary campuses? And to whom would we want to sell our campuses? This is just like the KFUO sale - hard to find anyone even willing to buy, much less put up the money. The seminaries are invaluable to us, but the campuses aren't worth what Dr. Nadasdy thinks they are, especially in the current market. So even on the off chance that we did find buyers, the amount of money the buyer would be willing to pay is going to be pretty underwhelming.
Also, if I remember my LCMS history correctly, the Synod can't sell the Fort Wayne campus. If Concordia Theological Seminary closes, the ownership of the campus reverts back to a previous owner (a family, if I remember correctly). So you don't make any money closing CTS.
I believe there is something to be said for having seminaries specifically dedicated to pastoral formation as opposed to a graduate program which is only a minor component of a university (important, but minor compared to the rest of the institution). I believe it's important to have more than one seminary (I don't think the LCMS would have bounced back from the Seminex ordeal if not for the other seminary), but at the same time it's unwise to have too many as it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain confessional unity. Two is a good number.
I have also heard it said that the Synod was created for three reasons: 1) a publishing house 2) missions and 3) seminaries. While pastoral formation would still happen, it would not be in the context of a seminary. I won't elucidate, but that in and of itself could have many negative consequences.
As I see it, we stand to lose much more than we would gain (if there even is anything to gain) by liquidating our seminaries.
ALSO - BRTFSSG Proposal 19 (Expand the Certification Process for Pastoral Candidates) didn't make much sense until VP Nadasdy proposed selling off the seminaries. If the seminaries don't exist, that creates a reason to introduce a new system of certifying pastoral formation students before graduation, ordination, and installation.
So maybe there is some method to his madness. Maybe VP Nadasdy inadvertently let the cat out of the bag.
Her preaching style is unique. I've never seen - as a component of a worship service - so much exegesis. Scott's message is drawn directly from the Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic, making points that one would not necessarily catch reading a translation (it appears that she reads from the King James Version and instructs her parishioners to change wording here and there). Watching her message (with the famous whiteboards filled with original languages), it makes you wonder how many pastors she puts to shame who either never learned Greek or Hebrew or who have forgotten most of it.
Last night, her text was Ephesians 6:17 "and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" which is the ESV translation. If you want to see it in Greek, it's right here. Scott made many points, but these two jumped out at me:
1) Where we read "sword" in this verse, the Greek word is μάχαιραν "machairan" which is a blade no longer than two feet. So we're not talking about Excalibur. It's not a warrior's or a soldier's sword. It's the kind of sword that a fisherman like Peter would have had on his belt (see John 18:10 where Peter cuts the dude's right ear off at the garden of Gethsemane - the Greek word for Peter's sword is "machairan"). In New Testament Greek, there are two words for sword, the other being ῥομφαίᾳ "rhomphaia." Machairan is only wielded by humans, and rhomphaia is yielded only by Jesus (in Revelation 1:16, Christ draws a ῥομφαίᾳ two-edged sword from his mouth) and she mentioned one exception which I don't recall. I don't remember what the reason was for pointing our that the "sword of the Spirit" isn't a big longsword, but rather it was a smaller blade (she called machairan a dagger for the purpose of contrasting against our thought of a soldier's broadsword). But I had never heard this before - I had always though of the Sword of the Spirit as a big long, heavy sword like what a knight would bring into battle. This is, after all, the Armor of God, right? Shouldn't I have a big honking sword to go with all this armor? Interesting.
2) For those who have dabbled a little bit in Greek, when we see the word "word" in the Bible, we automatically think λόγος "logos." However, in Ephesians 6:17, "word of God" in the Greek is ῥῆμα θεοῦ. Instead of logos, it's ῥῆμα "rhema." Again, I don't remember why she brought this up, but it's interesting.
Also, she is a proponent of Paul's authorship of Ephesians, whereas higher critics and other scholars are of the opinion that someone else must have written this epistle. It would be interesting, since she is someone who seems to hold more traditional views of biblical exegetical scholarship, to see how she justifies a female pastorate. My understanding is that women's ordination is the result of one or two of these beliefs: that the Bible is unreliable and contains errors or that certain things in the Bible are culturally conditioned for the recipients in Biblical times and do not apply to us today. [For the record, just in case there was any doubt, I affirm that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians.]
Scott doesn't seem to be the Bible-doubting liberal type, so I would assume she looks at certain passages and sees conditioned statements that no longer apply.
Something else about Scott, which has nothing to do with Biblical languages, is that she defies the stereotype of the female pastor (think Katharine Jefferts Schori or the Roman Catholic Womenpriests) which is, uh, kinda mannish.
If you don't feel like staying up until midnight to catch her on Ion, she streams 24 hours a day on her website which is http://www.pastormelissascott.com/ with the disclaimer that she ain't Lutheran.
And while the Lutheran church doesn't ordain women (at least, not those who believe in the inerrancy and infallability of Scripture and who affirm the Lutheran Confessions), this does not mean that our women are exegetically ignorant. There are a few women who take Greek and/or Hebrew as part of their undergrad studies, and there are others who study them as a part of their Deaconess training (which is a masters level program). And with more Original Language resources available now than ever before, there are probably also some self-taught Lutheran women reading NA27 or BHS.
Fun stuff, these languages.
And no, I will not punch in the face the next person who says "It's all Greek to me!" But it's tempting. Everybody thinks they're so clever when I talk about Greek being a required language at the Semianry and they in response utter this phrase. In fact, I'm working on a t-shirt that says something like "If I had a dollar for every time someone said to my face 'It's all Greek to me,' my entire seminary tuition would be paid in full."
This will likely not be the last time I blog about Pastor Melissa Scott.
JERRY SPRINGER is baffled his U.S. TV show has stayed on air so long - because it is "awful". The 65 year old has hosted The Jerry Springer Show since its debut in 1991 - but he's mystified as to why viewers are so hooked. He says, "We've been doing this show for 19 years now and I'm really sorry for that. No one had any idea that it would last all these years." And Springer can't help but cringe when he watches back his very first episode: "That was pretty pathetic but it's not as if it's got any better, it's still awful."
This blog is the private personal project of Josh Schroeder.
About Me
Josh Schroeder
I am a Pastoral Ministry student pursuing a Master of Divinity degree from Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis. I am the husband of Alison and the father of Joshua, Jr.
Todd and Jeff are on the air! Check out their website! Among other channels of distribution, Issues, Etc. can be heard in the Saint Louis area on 1320 AM - KSIV.
This chart was rolled out by Republicans yesterday and I stole it from Dan at Necessary Roughness. This isn't health care, it's inhuman bureaucracy.
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