Category Archives: Blogging

Blogging, Christianity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics

Is Brit Hume out of line?

Many people on the blogosphere have been commenting on the statements of Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday, where he said essentially that Tiger Woods should turn to faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, most will recognize that I would agree with that statement (though I might quibble with Hume’s phrasing). I agree that Buddhism is insufficient to provide redemption of a person in the position of Tiger Woods at the moment. Funnily, since Buddhism would advocate the elimination of attachment to worldly (and hence illusory) desires, it seems that some Buddhists would agree. Redemption for a Buddhist, is unnecessary, as the desire for that would be grasping at illusion, and so the wrong move for a Buddhist. I think Buddhism is incorrect, and so would most Christians. Is that a surprise? No. At least not if you have any idea about either Christianity or Buddhism.

The problem that Hume has though, is not the many Buddhists in the world, his problem is actually secularists in the media. As far as I can get the problem, it is that a commentator should not mix their field (providing commentary based on their opinion) with religion. Besides being patent nonsense (religious opinion is opinion, and thus fodder for commentators….. the reason I don’t freak out at Christopher Hitchens slagging my belief… he has a right to his opinion, and I have the right to publicly disagree), the assumption itself seems very hypocritical.

The secularist belief is that religion is best left to the private sphere. Secularists are entitled to that belief, but they should not be surprised when Brit Hume and many other Christians (and many other religionists) disagree with that assumption. The opinion the secularists hold is not universal, so it behooves them to convince others of their position, not simply attempt to bully people into adhering to their (minority) position.  Join the marketplace of ideas, and (as Hunter Baker said on a radio show recently) stop playing the game of public opinion

while simultaneously pretending to be umpires.

Brit Hume is not out of line, but his secularist detractors are.

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Blogging, Rant, technology

A Word on (comment) Etiquette

With the positive things dealt with over the last 2 days, it’s now a good time to give the basic rules for the (now fully moderated) comments section. I get to choose whether or not I post your comments.

I reserve the right to edit your comment (usually if your ideas are worthwhile, but you’re using language not acceptable for a family blog). Both publishing and editing are at my discretion (I choose). I cannot be appealed, and abusive followups will be met with blacklisting. I know that sounds harsh,

but after a few years talking about the topics I’m told polite people never discuss, I have had too much experience to be light on that. Following are the guidelines I’m going to use in grading comments. I will try my best to hold to these myself as well.

1) Don’t swear. Usually, I don’t demand this of people around me, but there are a variety of readers to this website, and some do not appreciate frequent f-bombs. Besides, it makes you sound like you can’t express yourself without an appeal to your possibly astounding command of the profane vernacular. Since I also have many readers for whom English is not their first language, I also don’t want to explain many of the terms, especially to members of the board of deacons.

2) Don’t be rude. This is a harder one to gauge, but still a hard rule. I do not want to have comments that you wouldn’t say to someone if they were sitting across from you, and neither of you were drunk or stoned. This means I don’t want you to call people names.

3) Don’t get snooty. Again, a bit subjective, but I know that I’m not a complete idiot, and I know that many of my readers are much smarter than I am. On the internet, you don’t know which ones are which. (“kutiepi314” might actually be a triple PhD in topics related to the one you’re trying to lecture them on). I also don’t want to clean up the mess if the J-School grad word-ninjas decide to take you down a peg using their finely sharpened lexical skills. Take the linguistic fisticuffs outside.

4) Respect others. Even if people don’t use the best words, and even if they seem less intelligent, they may still be right in their comments. We live in a universe in which intelligence does not guarantee truth. Smart people can be wrong, morons can be right. Assume the best of those that disagree with you, and you might be surprised and learn something.

5) Explain yourself. In this I mean, try to avoid using terms of art, or words that not everybody understands. I’ll explain further tomorrow when I do “a word on using logic”. For now, however, just remember that non-sequiter and ad hominium are latin, and very few people speak latin these days. It’s more fruitful if you actually tell us why a given statement is illogical than using the phrase “that’s a clear non-sequiter”. You can still use the term, but I’ll need to hear why you think the statement in question has no bearing on the argument.

I pray this will keep our conversations civil. :-)

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Blogging, Culture, Politics

What is this blog?

Yesterday I explained the reasons for my return to wordpress, and the fact that I’m going to have a slightly different ethos for the posts I create. I figured that before I set the (negative) ground rules for the blog, and especially for comments, that I should tell you, my dear readers, what to expect as you read here.

In the first place, I am a preacher, so I spend an awful lot of time studying Christian scriptures. As a result, that’s going to come up a fair bit. I am also a Christian, and rather unapologetic about it, so I’m going to write about that sometimes too.

That said, this is not an official Church blog, but it’s the blog of someone who works in the Church. As a result, there’re going to be some non-religious things talked about, like frustrations of being a white guy expat, with little Korean ability living in South Korea, or the joy of finding a decent hamburger, or my opinions on political stories I hear about, and even about how a confirmed bachelor like myself cannot understand women. The only unifying factor is that all of these things are things important to me.

I can’t imagine many would find my ideas fun to read, but then, I am not trying to gain readers, but just express what I think, and offer it to broader consideration.

Soli Deo Gloria

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Blogging, Culture, discernment, podcast, sin, theology

A Return to WordPress (and to blogging)

Well, seems that the mobileme hosting of my website is messed up, so now that I’m deciding to return to blogging, I’m also returning to using wordpress for my blogging. So here I am back blogging on my wordpress account.

In any case, my wordpress account has always had more traffic, so it’s probably best to stay here (cheaper too).

That said, I’m not the naive person who first started blogging years ago. I know that the internet has some strange people, and many who would never say a bad word to you in person can be downright mean from behind their iphones; especially when I use bad grammar or talk about politics or religion (my favorite topics) For that reason, over the next couple of days I’m going to write a few basic posts to explain the ground rules. They aren’t going to be up for debate, and I’m going to hold to them.

You may also notice a slight shift in focus over the next few months. I guess I am mellowing in my old age, and diversifying a little. I’m going to talk about whatever interests me, which will be wider than the Christian theological and apologetic rants. Those won’t vanish, but I’m going to talk about favorite hamburgers, experiences as a foreign pastor in Korea, and the frustrations of being a mid-30s single guy. If you are interested in the sermons I was posting on the mobileme website, you can get them via podcast from my Church website here.

Hope you all enjoy the new year with me!

In Him,

– Steve <><

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Beauty, Blogging, Coffee, Culture

Culture Shocking

Okay, I know I’ve spent time here before.

The problem is that this time I recognize a lot, and yet still everything is a little alien. 

It’s a little like the feeling an expat gets when he returns to his home country, save that at least here everybody expects me to be a little out of it for a while.

So tonight I’m wandering around the downtown of my new city. There are still foreigners here, though they are less common than in Seoul. Koreans here are more likely to try out their English on me, and you can tell that the clothing styles and the accent are all slightly different. 

I guess that comes from being in a “small” town (about the same population as my entire home province, as opposed to the combined population of Canada’s 5 largest cities). I only hope that they’re friendly here for more than English practice. This is going to be a long 3 years if I can’t make some friends down here.

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