As I finished preaching yesterday, I felt the familiar feeling of ... oh man, that could have been so much better. I am currently taking our church through a series on the book of Romans. Yesterday's text was Romans 1:16-17, the theme of the whole epistle, and possibly one of the most potent sections of the whole New Testament. Of all the places to do a weak job, why here? I was talking with Janet my wife in the afternoon, she was honest and encouragening, brining me back to reality a bit. The sum and substance of our conversation ended up being this. Even if I felt like it could have gone a lot better (and honestly it probably could have) I rest in the reality that His Word does not return void. As Isaiah 55:10-11 says..

It is amazing to see the development of a new 'Secular Fundamentalism' emerging in our country.  It is characterized by:

1) a blind devotion to the myth of Darwinian Evolution.

2) a commitment to censor anything that even questions that myth.

Several events over the past year point to this disturbing trend:

1) The Smithsonian's National Museaum of Natural History pulled out of showing a film called "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe".  Worst of all the Washington Post printed an editorial on this act of censorship that revealed its own secular fundamentalist bias.  Al Mohler describes the entire event well in his blog.

My wife and I saw Sting and Annie Lennox at the Hollywood Bowl last night. It was a birthday present. I have been a musical admirer of Sting for many years. On that level the evening was amazing. Sting's voice was in first rate form. The band was astounding (notably featuring a young drummer named Keith Carlock WOW!). Even the set list was enjoyable as it included one of my favorite, less popular Sting songs 'Seven Days'. Also on the bill was Annie Lennox. We enjoyed her set as well, although we wish she would have done 'Into The West' (from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack). All in all the concert was really well done.

On the flip side it was also an evening of sadness for me. There was a lot of thoughts conveyed via the music that night (Sting is a thoughtful composer, that's part of his appeal) but all of it pointed towards this current sort of trendy humanistic relativism. Which of course makes sense because this is exactly where Sting is coming from. In a casual interview he mentioned that when it comes to 'spiritual truth' he is not comfortable with the notion of 'certainty'. He then gently stated how important it was to remember that "there is no certainty". The person asking the questions had the presence of mind to light-heartedly ask, "Are you certain about that?". Which got a chuckle from Sting. I thought that was the key question really and would have been interested to hear his response. So last night while Sting sang in 'Send Your Love'...

I'm kind of sick and tired of the media's 'coverage' of the War. I feel like their distorted perspective on the whole thing is as foolish as it is nausiating :barf:. So I spotted some raw data on the War and thought it would be worth sharing with you all. You can find it at News Release HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND . It is a great collection of facts. I found it sort of amusing as I considered this data and related it to a game my son and I often play. The game was created by Sid Myer and is called Civilization. It is fascinating to note that the accomplishment of half of the things on that list would be considered an overwhelming victory in this trivial (yet fun) computer game. That this would be the case makes sense, look at the accomplishments listed by the US Central Command. This war has gone exceedingly well. Please understand I am not trying to trivialize what has come about through this conflict. Has it been difficult and very costly? Yes. But at the same time has it been worth it? Ask those liberated in Iraq and they would be the first to shout an overwhelming YES! When has something like this ever been accomplished, an entire nation liberated from such rampant cruelty, especially in this short amount of time? I am struck with how successful this entire war effort has been so far.

My recent posting of my paper, Exclusive Psalmody - A Scriptural Evaluation, got me thinking just a little on this topic again. I have not followed any thinking on this for years. After I did a quick google on the term, found a web page attempting to answer some of the objections I raised (not that they were answering me specifically, but the objections addressed were some of the same I voiced in my paper. I don't think they did a terribly good job. You can be the judge if you care and o