C.H. Cobb's Blog, page 27

Shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theater

NBC has incited racial hatred. Hopefully, it does not spill into violence. If it does, the FCC should revoke their broadcast license.

We've all heard of the famous 911 call from Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case. This was NBC's original excerpt of it:

"This guy looks like he's up to no good … he looks black," Zimmerman told a police dispatcher from his car." 

Sounds like Zimmerman might be a racist, doesn't it? Sounds like maybe he's got a chip on his shoulder, doesn't it?

It does, until you realize that NBC edited the quote in such a way that it casts Zimmerman in precisely that light .

Here is the actual transcript:

ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about.911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic? ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.

The actual transcript does not present the narrative that NBC (at one time reputed to have an actual, functioning, news organization) desires to present. So apply a little cutting and pasting, and presto: Zimmerman's a racist.

Look, there's nothing wrong if NBC wants to provide fiction for their viewers. It's their First Amendment right. But they should not present their fictionalized account as news. It's like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. They should be held responsible for their irresponsibility.

[The above quotes were clipped from a blog post by Dan Riehl. His post can be seen here.]

Dependency, Child-Labor, and the minimum-wage

Just a quick, not-quite-random thought tonight. Actually been chewing on this for a while.

As you teach your children what it means to be a believer, I trust that one of the qualities you are instilling in them is the will to work hard, and the love of work. Work is an honorable, even sacred activity. God worked, we work. It's part of bearing His image.

Unfortunately, American culture has stacked the deck against families who desire to teach their children how to work. Because of abuses from centuries past (such abuses still exist in many other countries), we now have all kinds of laws that get in the way of your child getting and holding a job.

I'll never forget that when we lived in Pennsylvania, we had to go to our teenager's high school to get permission for them to work. Why is it any of their business? Who gave the school system the right to have any say in what my child does when they are not on the school property? I found this intrusiveness frankly outrageous. To be quite honest with you, I might have simply ignored the requirement. Don't really remember.

To make matters worse (much, much worse), our elected representatives also seem to think they can dictate to businesses the minimum-wage that they can pay their workers. To the liberal mind, this makes good sense. To those who actually have good sense, however, the minimum-wage eliminates jobs that our kids could do; jobs which would teach them the value and discipline of work. Employers can't afford to pay unskilled teens the minimum wage - the value of their labor simply is not worth the money.

To see the relationship between the minimum-wage and teen unemployment, check out this blog post by Professor Mark J. Perry of the University of Michigan.


When teens don't learn to work hard, they learn to become dependent on mom and dad. When they leave home ( if they leave home), that dependency transfers to their uncle. You know the guy, name of Sam - Uncle Sam.

There is a correlation between the intrusive child-labor laws, the minimum-wage, and the ever-growing dependency class in America. We need to overthrow these ridiculous laws, fire the meddling bureaucrats who write the ridiculous regulations, and unemploy the legislators who conceive of such rubbish in the first place.

We should send them home to work, at the minimum wage.

Book-Signing

Saturday morning from 10:30 until 12:30, I'll be signing copies of Phoenix at the Bread of Life Bookstore, 107 West Main St, Greenville, Ohio.

This is my first signing, so for me it will be very special.

Thanks in advance to any who come, and thank you to the Smearsoll's for allowing me to do this signing! See you there!

Why study theology?

There is an important lesson waiting for us in Scripture,and it has to do with knowing God. The lesson is this: the trueknowledge of God, when wholeheartedly embraced, is in itself sufficient toenable us to meet life's suffering and disappointments.             We humansget this backwards. In our minds, what is necessary to meet the need of humansuffering is human comfort. It certainly is important to care and expresshuman sympathy, support, and compassion. And it is quite right and loving to doso. To do otherwise certainly would not express the love and kindness of God.            But theBook of Job has something to contribute to this discussion of the sufficiencyof the knowledge of God. Job suffered as few have. He lost his children, hiswealth, and his health, all in a single day. His wife's helpful advice was,"Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9).            Job hadthree outstanding friends who sought to comfort him, investing a huge amount oftime with him, grieving silently with him for seven straight days and nights.Then they sought to help him by bringing some perspective to his suffering. Itis easy to blame Job's friends, but you must admit that they had earned ahearing by their obvious care for him. But their attempts at comfort fellshort. They blamed Job for sin he had not committed, and Job retreated intoself-righteousness, ultimately intimating that God was unfair.            But it wasGod who brought resolution and comfort to the situation. God sent a young manby the name of Elihu to set the stage by defending God's sovereign righteousness.God Himself then finally appeared and spoke to Job. What God said to Job is jarring to our perception of how a suffering person should be comforted. Godessentially said, "Job! Look at me! Are you as great as I am? Can you dowhat I can do?"            When Godwas finished, Job repented of his self-righteousness and became satisfied inhis God. Did you get that? Job was comforted when he gazed on thegreatness of his God !            Think ofthe Letters to the Seven Churches in Revelation chapters two and three. Each ofthe churches was suffering some form of persecution. They each were facingcertain dangers. But God opens each letter by describing Himself ,and closes each by giving them a promise.             WhatI am saying is this: we are so designed, so created, so wrought, that we findour greatest comfort, satisfaction and delight in knowing truly our God. At theend of the day, your proper knowledge of theology is comforting andsustaining. The Catholic Church has a name for this: they call it the BeatificVision. The Beatific Vision is said to be the eternal and direct perceptionof God enjoyed by those who are in Heaven, imparting supreme happiness orblessedness [wikipedia]. What I am telling you is that we have thebeatific vision now, in a sense, as we see our God through His Sonand His Word. And it does indeed impart supreme happiness and blessedness as we glorify Him by knowing Him properly. Isthere a better reason to study theology?

[This post comes from my introduction to Session 7 of our Advanced Theological Training course at BFC.]

Review of Worldview as Worship

Worldview as Worship , by Eddie Karl Baumann

Baumann is a Christian educator who wants to be thoroughly biblical in the way he approaches education, particularly surrounding the issue of how one integrates biblical faith with content, irrespective of the particular teaching discipline. His goal is that education would be properly transformative for the student, not merely informative.

In order to introduce his ideas to the reader, Bauman very creatively assembles a fictional faculty at a Christian high school, and uses the characters as a foil for building his case at the beginning of many of the chapters. This is especially effective as he presents the faculty as attending a series of conferences conducted by a specialist who is challenging them to develop a truly biblically transformative educational environment.

Baumann has several basic points he wants to get across. He makes a case that the common conception of worldview as a rationally qualified philosophy actually confuses philosophy with worldview. Baumann argues that worldview is in fact inculcated by culture and is, in that sense, pre-rational. He contends that a particular worldview can actually support several disparate philosophies.

Second, Baumann argues that worldview formation (and <i>trans</i>formation)is more akin to an apprenticeship model than to an academic model. As he says at the end of his book, it is more caught than taught (312).

His conclusion is that genuinely biblical integration of faith and content must take place in the context of a faith community that is actively obeying Christ, fulfilling His commands to love our neighbors as ourselves. Merely having the right answers to questions does not display a genuinely biblical worldview. Hence the title, <i>Worldview as Worship</i>.

It is a good, carefully argued book. Not all of his thoughts do I agree with, especially when he veers into areas such as economics. His division of the varieties of biblical worldview into types is interesting (pp 216-240). I think it is a little more tied to one's eschatology than Baumann does, nonetheless it was provocative.

Strengths of the book: exhaustively researched, theologically astute, carefully argued, well illustrated with examples and scenarios. Some of his thinking I would characterize as profound. He does a wonderful job of assembling the biblical data and then interpreting it in a theologically accurate way, all the while using numerous quotes from other writers to buttress his own thinking.

Weaknesses of the book: it was almost too much. His argumentation was so close and so detailed that I was frequently losing the larger picture of the points he was seeking to advance. It would help the readability of the book to use more subheadings that would guide the reader through the labyrinth of his argument with single sentences. At times I also lost the sense of the progression of the argument. I have to admit, however, that this might be less of a problem for most readers, as it took me a long time to read the book (my fault, not Baumann's), and therefore I may have lost track of the argumentation simply because of my own slowness in reading.

<i>Worldview as Worship</i> is an excellent book for thinkers who are at least somewhat conversant with philosophy and philosophical terms, and who are solidly biblically literate. It is college-level material, if not graduate-level, in my opinion.

Interview time has changed. . .

Okay, gang. I goofed.

The real interview time at 88.9 Joy FM is tomorrow (Thursday, March 8) from 7:00AM until 8:00AM, if you want to listen. You can also get it streaming, live, here. Naomi Cantrell will be interviewing me about Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix.

Another author-event is coming up on Saturday, March 24. I will be signing copies of Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix at the Bread of Life Bookstore in Greenville, from 10:30 AM until 12:30 PM.

I've never done this sort of thing before, and haven't a clue. Come on out and say, 'hi!'

The Washing Machine and I, Part 2

When we last visited our little mechanical hero, it was spilling its guts all over the laundry room floor. You can read about that little adventure here. A little plumbing work, and we were back in action.

Alas, it's time for a new adventure. One wonders why adventures can't be in, like, Colorado, instead of in my basement. 'Tis a fallen world. . . .

Anyway, a couple of months ago Doris began complaining that the clothes in the washer were sometimes still wringing wet at the end of the wash cycle. Apparently, the washer was not spinning. It was agitating (quite agitating, in fact), pumping, but not always spinning. Sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn't.


I figured it must be a cycle of the moon, or maybe just high tide. Surely it would correct itself soon. You remember from the last article my chief maintenance tactic: ignore it and maybe it will go away.

It didn't. In fact, eventually it stopped spinning at all, which precipitated a minor crisis. The crisis was not the washer, it was the laundry; we were both running out of clean-- never mind, you really don't want to know.



Here is the evidence, artfully arranged so as to hide any, ah, indelicate items.

Oh, look, there's a Bronco's sweatshirt on top! How on earth did that get there?

[Doris tells me that we're the only family in Greenville that puts their dirty laundry on the Internet.]

Okay, so last week I began to think about fixing the problem as obviously the tidal calendar had not helped. You can find anything on the Internet, and I found a very helpful site that was able to identify the problem. It was the clutch. Did you know that your washing machine has a clutch? And a transmission? Everything but a driver, in fact.
I ordered the clutch, and yesterday it came in. Just in time, too, as we had also run out of clean. . .  oh, never mind.

Did you notice the very helpful instructions? Can anyone translate, what, French? What happened to good old Spanish? Why French? Of course, I can't read Spanish either, but at least I would feel more at home. This is America, after all. Right?
Thankfully, there was a video on the web site, and soon I was delving into the bowels of my washer.

This thingamabob has to come out first. . .

followed by the whatsit. . .

Next up was fifteen minutes of very spiritual meditation. . .


My thoughts included such epistemological twisters as:How did I get myself into this?How will I ever get this back together?Maybe it's time for a new washer?I need to teach Doris everything I know so she can do this. Let's see, that would be righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.Is it too late to repent?Wonder if Larry Addis knows how to fix washers?Dirty clothes really aren't that bad.Thankfully, I finally remembered the video on the web, and took a refresher course. I pulled the bad clutch. . .


and then installed the new one, and viola! The washer works again. Dor's already done several loads of laundry, and that thing spins like a politician in an election cycle. Not bad, not bad at all.

Help Indie Authors!

Indieauthors do not have someone managing their book's publicity plan ormarketing. We don't have the support of an organization getting ournovels in front of retailers who will carry them in their store. Otherthan what marketing efforts we can cobble together on our own, wehave only one source of publicity that can encourage others to buyour books, and that's you, our readers.

Yourword-of-mouth recommendation, your Facebook comment, your tweet, yourAmazon or Goodreads review is likely the only way an unknown authorwill get the word out about his or her book.

Let mehasten to admit that the reader is certainly under noobligation here. If you don'tlike the tale, or if the editing was sloppy, the cover or packagingamateurish, then by all means, don't encourage someone else to readit. The last thing the independent publishing movement needs areproducts that fall short of genuine quality.

Evenif you think the product is the best work since Bunyan's Pilgrim'sProgress or Tolkien's Lordof the Rings, you stillaren't obligated. Art doesn't create a debt or obligation on thepart of the viewer. You're free to enjoy it and walk away.

But ifyou find a tale you like, and you'd like to read more by thatauthor, give him or her a hand by letting your friends and loved onesknow where they can get a good story. Post a review, send a fewemails, tell a few friends. Once the word gets out, a good story willsell itself; but getting the word out is the challenge.

An excerpt of Falcon Down is available!

A brief excerpt of my current novel-in-progress is available. You can find it on my website, or simply by going here.

This tale is very different from Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix. The Falcon books are a series of military/espionage thrillers set in the Cold War around 1986. Most of the action in Falcon Down takes place in Siberia. The preliminary "hook" for the series is this:

After USAF Major Jacob Kelly disappears over the Bering Sea in an F-16 during a test flight, the Accident Investigation Board concludes it was a case of pilot error. Kelly's service record receives its final update: "missing and presumed dead." There are some, however, who know differently, including the Soviet intelligence officer assigned to interrogate Kelly. . . .

An unusual piece of trivia about the Falcon series is that the first book is the last one to be written. The latter portion is already complete (though in need of some re-writing before release). If, as I am considering at the moment, I divide the already-written second novel into three pieces (it is a rather long, three-part story), then the final three books of the series are finished (except for the final re-write, as mentioned earlier).

Falcon Rising, the second book in the series, takes place largely in Alaska, though the action moves around from Washington D.C., to southern California, and Seattle.

Preliminary titles for the final two books are Falcon Caged and Falcon's Revenge.

BFC folks: If you are curious about this series, talk to Carol Williams; she has actually read the completed [second] novel, only under a different title.

Now you BFCers know what I do with my Mondays. . . .

Any of your antagonists named, 'Sennacherib?'

Ran across something interesting the other day while reading my Bible. You can find it in 2 Chronicles 31:20-32:1. See if you see the same thing I did:

Thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah; and he did what was good, right and true before the Lord his God.

Every work which he began in the service of the house of God in law and in commandment, seeking his God, he did with all his heart and prospered. 

After all these acts of faithfulness Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah and beseiged the fortified cities, and thought to break into them for himself. [NASB]

Do you see it? It's right there in front of you. If you've missed it, read the text again. " After all these acts of faithfulness Sennacherib. . . " There it is.

Hezekiah accumulated a long list of faithful works for the name of his God. And God repays him by sending Sennacherib, his antagonist, the enemy of Israel. It seems so wrong, doesn't it? By our notion of justice, God should be sending boatloads of blessing on Hezekiah. Instead He sends boatloads of Assyrians. Definitely not the same thing.

But why? We aren't told why. Do you need to know why? Does God need to explain to you and I why He does what He does? Or does He get to be the sovereign of the Universe in our little lives, and do what He deems best for His own purposes?

Is God still good when I (or you) suffer for humanly inexplicable purposes? That's a question only faith can answer properly.

My faith is challenged when after a long period of obedience and submission to His will, God sends Sennacherib. Greatly challenged. But maybe that's the point. Maybe it's a new invitation to faith in God's faithfulness, His goodness, and His ultimate good purposes.

Maybe it is an invitation to faith in His Son Jesus, who after a lifetime of obedience to God was hung on the cross in a bloody, awful death.

The writer of Hebrews says that we should fix our eyes on Jesus, "the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. . . " (Heb 12:2, NASB)

The difference between faith and stoic suffering is found in one word: hope. In the former, you know you're in the hands of a God who loves you, and is doing what is best. In the former, you know the story does not end on the cross, but continues through the door of the empty tomb. In the latter, in stoic suffering, you're trapped in the gears of the unfeeling, impersonable cosmic machine, grinding out an inexorable, and quite meaningless, end.

I'll take hope, thank you. And I can, because Jesus endured the cross for me.

Know anybody named Sennacherib?