Monthly Archives: June 2007

More anti-FV smokescreens

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“One of the complaints of Federal Vision advocates is that they didn’t get a fair shake at the General Assembly.”

Where does this stuff come from? Nothing was done wrong at the Assembly debate. But there could be no “fair shake.” A stacked committee produced a report full of falsehoods (i.e statements about the Westminster Standards that were false; also maybe statement about what certain people believed, but I haven’t been tracking that as much because I’ve been too concerned about the former). Saying so would have just produced more opposition. How dare anyone disagree with the venerable R C Sproul, Lig Duncan, blah blah blah.
GA has never been a place to have serious theological discussion and this was no exception.

And by the way, the efforts of people trying do defend themselves from denominationally sanctioned libel (the nefarious act of mailing out the thirty questions) does not compare to the stacked committee in the first place. A rag tag group of people tried to resist the violence of the empire. And they didn’t succeed.

Yet.

Speaking for myself, I let the Novenson motion play out and then thought of something I thought would be constructive. At that point the Assembly voted to halt dabate. That was frustrating, but there was nothing unfair about it. The unfair thing was the falsehoods in the committee report and the ones told on the floor of the GA.

But those can always be dealt with in the blogsophere.

PS. I’m sorry there are going to be hurt feelings over statements about the content of the report. But the report not only says things are Westminsterian that are not Westminsterian, it says things that members of the committee are still teaching contrary to on their church website as in keeping with Westminster. The report claims that “precisely the point of the Standards’ use of the term and theological category of ‘merit.’ Merit relates to the just fulfillment of the conditions of the covenant of works” (LC 55, 174).” [lines 25-27, p. 2207] But Dr. Ligon Duncan still teaches from his lectures on his church website,

What God is doing is not merited. Adam has not merited this. We use the phrase Covenant of Works, not to say that man earned these blessings, but to express the fact that this original relationship had no provision for the continuation of God’s blessings if disobedience occurred. So it was a covenant contingent upon Adam continuing in his obligations. (emphasis all in the original).

So, according to the report, Dr. Duncan is teaching about the covenant of works contrary to what is teaching “precisely the point of the Standards’ use of the term and theological category of ‘merit.’” Honestly, like someone recently wrote, you couldn’t make this stuff up.  Yet this was an attack on an identifiable group of people for teaching the same thing as Dr. Duncan.  (Note, the declarations with Dr. Lucas GA explanation, are better than the committee report, but the report itself is still beset with this and other problems.)

links for 2007-06-29

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On homo-eroticizing history

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OK, I’m late, but I finally figured out why Scalzi is a popular blogger. His post on Today’s Example of an Egregious Use of Something a Writer Once Learned in a Freshman Philosophy Course was completely hysterical and quite right. His target is the claim that movies and philosophies should be labeled homo-erotic (though, careful, he is agreeing with Feeney). Actually, that’s just an aside. His real point is that

More seriously, however, reaching all the way back to Nietzsche and Aristotle to explain why Keanu and Patrick are not [totally deleted because this is a PG blog] is completely unnecessary, the middlebrow cultural commentary equivalent of going after a fly with an axe.

But really, as someone who, in college, loved reading Ayn Rand, the final paragraph was a ROFL moment:

In short: Dragging philosophy into the discussion is not always as effective as you might think it is. Just because Ayn Rand ran to Aristotle for every little thing doesn’t mean it works for everyone. Hell, it didn’t actually work for Ayn Rand. Let’s not get into that now. Although I will say this: if Howard Roark and John Galt ever got together, that would be hot.

About blogging

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I was asked to teach a blogging 101 seminar at a local community college.  Most of it was just leading the participants through a WordPress process.  But below is what I wrote down for myself to talk about.

1. What is a Blog and what is Blogging.

A blog is a web log, a journal of some sort kept on the web. It entails a web site where you can publish entries that are time stamped (Usually the most recent is on top).

Blogging is a simpler way of saying, “I keep a blog,” the way people will say “I keep a diary.”

A blogger is a someone who has a blog.

Typically, a blog is thought of in a way that involves a website control panel that posts in a blog format.

2. The first blogs.

Of course, the first blogs did not have a customized blogging control panel. The first blogs were created by web savvy people who, instead of adding essays or articles or simply updating their home page, decided to start creating journal entries.

http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

In 1998 there were just a handful of sites of the type that are now identified as weblogs (so named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift, began compiling a list of “other sites like his” as he found them in his travels around the web. In November of that year, he sent that list to Cameron Barrett. Cameron published the list on Camworld, and others maintaining similar sites began sending their URLs to him for inclusion on the list. Jesse’s ‘page of only weblogs‘ lists the 23 known to be in existence at the beginning of 1999.

Suddenly a community sprang up. It was easy to read all of the weblogs on Cameron’s list, and most interested people did. Peter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it ‘wee-blog’ and inevitably this was shortened to ‘blog’ with the weblog editor referred to as a ‘blogger.’

At this point, the bandwagon jumping began. More and more people began publishing their own weblogs. I began mine in April of 1999. Suddenly it became difficult to read every weblog every day, or even to keep track of all the new ones that were appearing. Cameron’s list grew so large that he began including only weblogs he actually followed himself. Other webloggers did the same. In early 1999 Brigitte Eaton compiled a list of every weblog she knew about and created the Eatonweb Portal. Brig evaluated all submissions by a simple criterion: that the site consist of dated entries. Webloggers debated what was and what was not a weblog, but since the Eatonweb Portal was the most complete listing of weblogs available, Brig’s inclusive definition prevailed.

This rapid growth continued steadily until July 1999 when Pitas, the first free build-your-own-weblog tool launched, and suddenly there were hundreds. In August, Pyra released Blogger, and Groksoup launched, and with the ease that these web-based tools provided, the bandwagon-jumping turned into an explosion. Late in 1999 software developer Dave Winer introduced Edit This Page, and Jeff A. Campbell launched Velocinews. All of these services are free, and all of them are designed to enable individuals to publish their own weblogs quickly and easily.

Pitas is still around but I had never head of it back when I started blogging in 1999. I learned blogging from a friend of mine who used blogger and the only other system I remember finding in the early days was http://diary-x.com (which was not be adu1t c0ntent beyond the writing of the bloggers themselves).

Blogger.com was a website from which you could send content to your homepage. However, they also offered free memberships on Blogspot.com so that anyone could start blogging right away. They tried to pay for the system by putting one single banner ad on the top of each blog.

This also became a way for people to naturally learn html. They learned both from their posts (using italics and embedding links) as well as from putting up links and pic in their sidebars. Until recently, blogger gave you access to the entire template including the css stylesheet which was included in the main page rather than a separate file like is done in most websites.

At some point early on, Upsaid appeared. They offered blogs for free but now charge $2 a month.

Not too long afterwards came Greymatter. This was open source software that you installed on your own website. It is still around (though I’m disappointed that the website uses orange).

Movable Type soon followed. Like Greymatter it was for those who owned a website, though it has been used by sites offering free blogs like Chattablogs.

I should meantion three blog systems that also appeared, though some of these tended to be seen as “virtual communities” along the lines of the later myspace.com rather than pure blogs. In a sense, I simply didn’t notice these because they seem to appeal to a younger user.

  • Livejournal.com (Wikipedia entry) 1999
  • Typepad.com 2005 — considered the largest paid blogging service in the world. I notice that lots of professionals use it, but since I never pay for this kind of thing, I am not one of them.
  • Xanga.com (Wikipedia entry) 1998 as a music and book review community. I don’t have much knowledge of Xanga because I find it aesthetically painful whenever I visit.

3. Blogging Now

The most recent blogging news has been WordPress (both as a free blogging program and as a free site for blogging) and Blogger’s recent upgrade. WordPress.com is great, but it doesn’t allow you to “weaponize” your blog for income, nor to embed video. In both these cases the free account at blogger is better.

Other kinds of web logs have come into being. Audioblogging (see Hipcast.com) and vlogging on youtube are now possible. To an extent, these aren’t done that often because audio and video podcasting have also developed.

Google not only made the banner ad go away from blogspot.com, but they invented Adsense.com which enables you to put ads on your blog and get money from them. Some blogs have been highly successful. Dooce.com (no link due to content warning) was, last I heard, still able to pay their house mortgage with their revenues from blog advertizing.

See also, Text Link Ads.

Blogging was part of the move from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and it provided a market for a bunch of new services and social networking sites, like delicious, which has applications for blogs. Also, some services are specifically aimed at blogs, like Technorati.com. Other services have sprung up like Cocomment.com and specialized search engine features on google.

This has all lead to new ways of marketing. For more see Copyblogger.com, Problogger.com, and others.

Bulldog reporter:

Over lunch with a prominent PR industry blogger recently, he was lamenting that PR people seem hopelessly out of touch with today’s revolution in PR technology. I noted that PR practitioners had already missed one huge technology opportunity for lack of trying: Control of the corporate website. We had the chance to command this primary corporate communications tool, and we let it slip through our fingers. Today, we’re lucky if IT lets us have an online newsroom (and even most online newsrooms are embarrassingly effete).

Today we have a second chance. It’s an exciting and historically momentous time to be in the communications business. We now have the power to communicate our messages—in words, video and audio—to hundreds of millions of people around the globe in seconds. And those millions of people can communicate right back to us just as quickly. Interactive technology, broadband telecommunications, search, social media—these things are revolutionizing not only the way we communicate, but also how we function as communities and as a society. These technologies are beginning to affect profoundly the way we interact politically, socially and of course, commercially. As communicators, the question we should ask ourselves as we stand looking out on our profession’s horizon is: How has our experience prepared us for this moment in time, in history and this juncture in our professional lives?

Experience is a funny—deceptive—thing. Experience can provide you with a body of knowledge and received wisdom, and it can give you an intuitive sense of how to respond to the challenges springing up around you. As a general notion that’s good. But I’m starting to wonder if experience is always the most important quality we can bring to the table.

Blogging also promises to change the shape of intellectual interchange. Journals are still around and so is peer review. But now mavericks have a voice.

How quickly we become strangers to ourselves

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I post this because I think it shows how strange we become to ourselves. Do you notice that the singer is the only one without a tie. What was the dress code and why was he exempt?

This took place fewer than five years before I was born but it looks like footage from another planet.

Hat tip: Dawn Patrol

Watching the comments on anti-FV blogs keeps paying off

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From one of John Calvin’s sermons on Deuteronomy, Sermon 33, 5:11, p., 196.:

Behold our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory, abased himself for a time, as says S. Paul Now if there were no more but this, that he being the fountain of life, became a mortal man, and that he having dominion over the angels of heaven, took upon him the shape of a servant, yea even to shed his blood for our redemption, and in the end to suffer the curse that was due unto us (Gal 3:13): were it convenient that notwithstanding all this, he should nowadays in recompense be torn to pieces, by stinking mouths of such as name themselves Christians? For when they swear by his blood, by his death, by his wounds and by whatsoever else: is it not a crucifying of God’s son again as much as in them lies, and as a rending of him in pieces? And are not such folk worthy to be cut of from God’s Church, yea, and even from the world, and to be no more numbered in the array of creatures? Should our Lord Jesus have such reward at our hands, for his abasing and humbling of himself after that manner? (Mich 6:30) God in upbraiding his people says thus: My people, what have I done to you? I have brought you out of Egypt, I have led you up with all gentleness and loving-kindness, I have planted you as it were in my own inheritance, to the intent you should have been a vine that should have brought me forth good fruit, and I have tilled thee and manured thee: and must thou now be bitter to me, and bring forth sower fruit to choke me withal? The same belongs to us at this day. For when the son of God, who is ordained to be judge of the world (John 5:22), shall come at the last day: he may well say to us: how now Sirs? You have borne my name, you have been baptised in remembrance of me and record that I was your redeemer, I have drawn you out of the dungeons where into you were plunged, I delivered you from endless death by suffering most cruel death myself, and for the same cause I became man, and submitted myself even to the curse of GOD my father, that you might be blessed by my grace and by my means: and behold the reward that you have yielded me for all this, is that you have (after a sort) torn me in pieces and made a jestingstock of me, and the death that I suffered for you has been made a mockery among you, the blood which is the washing and cleansing of your souls has been as good as trampled under your feet, and to be short, you have taken occasion to ban and blaspheme me, as though I had been some wretched and cursed creature. When the sovereign judge shall charge us with these things, I pray you will it not be as thundering upon us, to ding us down to the bottom of hell? Yes: and yet are there very few that think upon it.

This great sermon to New Covenant Christians from Deuteronomy reminds me of his commentary on Deuteronomy where he writes:

For, since the fall of Adam had brought disgrace upon all his posterity, God restores those, whom He separates as His own, so that their condition may be better than that of all other nations. At the same time it must be remarked, that this grace of renewal is effaced in many who have afterwards profaned it. Consequently the Church is called God’s work and creation, in two senses, i.e., generally with respect to its outward calling, and specially with respect to spiritual regeneration, as far as regards the elect; for the covenant of grace is common to hypocrites and true believers. On this ground all whom God gathers into His Church, are indiscriminately said to be renewed and regenerated: but the internal renovation belongs to believers only; whom Paul, therefore, calls God’s “workmanship, created unto good works, which God hath prepared, etc.” (Ephesians 2:10.). Calvin, Deut 32:6

It also reminds me of the forty-fourth Q&A of the Westminster Shorter Catachism, which teaches the covenant child to consider Christ his or her redeemer.  Both Westminster and Heidelberg claim this confidence, to a great extent, on the basis of the person’s baptism.  Again, this indicates how far from the Reformed Heritage, our doctrinal standards, and the  Bible the recent Committee report really was.

Ron Paul on G4

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I don’t think we get G4 any more and this posting does not constitute an admission that I occasionally watch it about games whose platforms I cannot afford…

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I realize we probably all need to get used to saying “Madam President,” but at least we have one Republican who is not going to bore us in the race.

I’m still hoping that Fred Thompson will run, win, and be a good president, but I’m not sure of any of those. On the other hand, with Hillary in charge, I can at least look forward to Evangelicals sounding like conservative anti-statists again.

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The ordinances are called the ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption, because the Lord hath not wholly limited and bound up himself unto his ordinances; for he can in an extraordinary way bring some out of a state of nature into a state of grace; as Paul, who was converted by a light and a voice from heaven: but the ordiuances are the most usual way and means of conversion and salvation, without the use of which we cannot, upon good ground, expect that any benefit of redemption should be communicated to us.