I don't care what the Bible don't allow, gonna write with green ink anyhow

Quite a few Christians don't believe something in The Bible.

Even Christians who say they believe the Bible word-for-word.

To avoid getting off on a tangent arguing which verses we disagree about, let's make up an example that isn't actually in the Bible. How about: "Don't write with green ink." Let's say the Apostle Paul wrote this in III Goofians.

Some readers are going to foreswear green ink because the Bible forbids its use. Some of these foreswearers who are theologians will think up good reasons for the edict: Green represents the deadly sin envy, as in "green with envy," or perhaps the serpent who tempted Eve was a green snake. Others, who are just plain followers of the text (i.e. fundamentalists) simply note that green ink is a sin and avoid it.

Other readers who can't think of any logical reason not to use green ink -- or maybe they just think it's pretty -- will come up with reasons that this passage should be considered in context. Maybe in Paul's day you had to kill a kitten to produce green ink. Since catricide is no longer necessary to the process today, green ink is fine. Or maybe Paul was talking only to the Goofians because that city's culture associated green ink with worshiping false gods. Or maybe Paul never said it at all, and the green ink ban was put in later by makers of red ink who didn't want to change their business model.

Whatever the case, the disagreement brings about the creation of several churches based on either believing in or not believing in the green ink ban. Also, a publisher will get four theologians to contribute to a book titled "Four Views of Green Ink" in which this one verse of Scripture is dissected ad nauseam.

Then there's the whole loophole of writing in yellow, then tracing over it with blue. Is this sinful? After all, the intent is to produce green writing. Is it OK to write in green on computers since the text says "ink" and computers don't use ink?

Some people will say that anyone writing with green ink is going to hell. Others say that while green ink is clearly unbiblical, God's forgiveness is vast. And, in certain circumstances, green might be the only ink available with which to share the gospel in printed form. Is it better that the Word not be shared at all, or that it be shared in green?

In the end, the debate will not be settled, because I am right (no pun intended) and you are a child of perdition. Even though you think the same thing about me, that just makes you judgmental.

You should follow me on Twitter here and Facebook here.

Photo: Paper Mate

Saying goodbye to my pastor

Our pastor at Shades Valley Community Church just outside Birmingham, Alabama recently retired. This is a video I made to commemorate the event.

Westboro Baptist vs. the KKK

The Westboro Baptist Church protesters are so offensive even the Ku Klux Klan doesn’t like them.

According the The Atlantic Wire, members of Virginia Klan branch Knights of the Southern Cross were so disgusted that the Rev. Fred Phelps’ followers planned to protest a fallen soldier’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery they showed up to counter-protest.

“That's fine. They have no moral authority on anything. People like them say it’s white power ... white supremacy. The Bible doesn’t say anywhere that it's an abomination to be born of a certain gender or race,” Phelps’ daughter, Abigail Phelps, told CNN.

A Klan spokesman on site noted that Westboro is wrong to protest the funerals of soldiers because it is the very fact that brave Americans have died that they even have the right to make such offensive gestures as holding up signs reading “God Hates Fags” while families are grieving. (The “church” says the U.S. is losing soldiers in war because of American society’s acceptance of homosexuality.)

Of course, a lot of those who have given their lives for our freedom of speech were black – or Jewish – or Catholic. Or many other things the “Christian” Knights of the Ku Klux Klan see as inferior to themselves, so there’s little else I agree with them about than that the Westboro bunch are morons.

The Westboro people do have every right to protest, but this so-called Christian organization – which is actually predominantly members of Phelps’ own family – has failed to follow the Scripture telling us to “rejoice with those who rejoice” and to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). Regardless of Westboro’s theology, they should be weeping with family members who have lost a loved one if they want to be more scriptural than the Klan.

They could protest a gay pride event if they feel God is calling them to speak out publicly against same-sex relationships. Regardless of whether you agree with Phelps, it seems like that would at least make some semblance of sense. Even then the offensive “God Hates Fags” signs would be out of place. In the first place, the Bible never uses slurs against homosexuals. Second, it never says God hates them.

There are certain actions the Bible says God hates. For instance, he says, “I hate divorce,” in Malachi 2:16. Phelps’ and family have made up at least a few signs that say “God Hates Divorce.” But the name of their website is not GodHatesDivorce.com, it’s GodHatesFags.com. And they refuse to use any word other than “fag” – evhen the neutral and biblical “homosexual.”

But using slurs and inaccuracies get them attention, as do protests at sites that have nothing to do with homosexuality. And they have to do what they can to get attention. God is on their side, but must be too weak to get attention for himself. Either that, or he refuses to associate himself with them.

You should follow me on Twitter here and Facebook here.

Photo: Some rights reserved by k763

A different drummer

The drummer for the Newsboys is following me on Twitter.

This may not seem like a big deal to you if you are being followed by celebrities on Twitter or if you don’t know who the Newsboys are. But let me assure you, it’s a big deal to me. You might have noticed that this blog is titled “Syncopator Familias” with drum art on it. I wish that meant that I’m a brilliant drummer, but, sadly, that is no more true than the fact I was able to get the Twitter handle Tweetologian means I’m a brilliant theological thinker – or even a decent tweeter.

But I do like to play the drums when I get the chance, so when I’m followed by an actual professional drummer, that’s pretty cool. What’s more, I didn’t even follow him first – or mention him in a tweet. Kellie Pickler follows both my @OwenTew and @Tweetologian accounts, but she followed neither until I mentioned her – and used her Twitter handle – in a tweet. Pickler’s follow seemed to bring in some other folks, including Reba McEntire’s drummer.

I’m followed by some authors, musicians, politicians and pundits. But most of them set up autobots to follow people who follow them first.

But Duncan Phillips appears to be following me solely over something I wrote. I want to know what it was. The last thing I tweeted before I got the e-mail he was following me was: Dear, Westboro Baptist: "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." Romans 12:15 http://bit.ly/mipkIo

I suppose that was it.

I’ve been a Newsboys fan for more than 20 years. I actually own a cassette tape of their debut album. A friend gave it to me as a groomsman’s gift because he and I were both newspaper reporters – and because I listened to Christian music outside the cookie cutter stuff. So to have their drummer following me is a full circle.

It’s odd, though, that as a wannabe drummer I get followed by the Newsboys’ drummer and Reba’s drummer. Even stranger was when I met the drummer for the Barenaked Ladies.

I was killing time between work and a class about 10 years ago, taking photos of a church a block away from my office. I saw a guy out of the corner of my eye and tried to ignore him. But after he yelled, “Hey, Mr. Photographer!” it was difficult.

Hardly anyone walks up and talks to you on the street in downtown Birmingham without hitting you up for cash, so I was poised for this. He sensed my wariness and explained he was the drummer for the Barenaked Ladies. “Can you tell me where I can get a sandwich and an Absolut?” he wanted to know.

I hated to tell him, but there’s hardly a place even today – and certainly back then – to get a sandwich and an Absolut in downtown B’ham at 4:30 on a weekday afternoon. It finally hit me that there was place about six or seven blocks down, but I couldn’t verify they’d be open. He looked a bit letdown, but was on his way.

I went straight to my car where I had three Barenaked Ladies CDs – and there he was on the back. I looked at my camera and realized I was an ignoramus for not taking his picture.

You should follow me on Twitter here and Facebook here.

Photo: Newsboys Facebook page

The swing voter is no one to celebrate

I’ve always been suspicious of the swing voter. The media usually drool all over them: They supposedly are the most informed, looking at the issues one-by-one, then picking the candidate who will do the country the most good.

Bull.

People with political convictions, whether on the left or right, almost always vote for the same party. They do so because these voters have convictions. They believe in things so strongly that they’ll actually vote against their own self-interest if need be. Not so the swing voter.

A swing voter marks his ballot solely on which candidate will do the most for him. Just watch them next election night. The TV networks love to gather a roomful of “undecideds” to ask them how they felt about a debate. Almost to a T each one prefaces his or her comments with, “Candidate Smith talked about how to cut my taxes, help with college tuition, keep my job safe …”

I have more respect for someone on the exact opposite side of the political fence from myself than I do for people who vote based solely on what a candidate will do to help them personally. At least those who disagree with me stand for something. They, like me, will support political causes they believe are right – even when it actually hurts them personally.

We can find people like this from all sides of the political spectrum, but one I heard recently was a caller to The Rush Limbaugh radio show. Identifying himself as Walter from Edgewater, New Jersey, he said he isn’t concerned about high unemployment since he has a job. He isn’t worried about the collapse of the housing market because his house is bought and paid for; he isn’t going to lose it.

Walter is an extreme example, and even sounds like he’s not very bright. Either that or he’s just messing with Limbaugh, which is what is most likely. Walter isn’t a swing voter. He’s a partisan. But his talk sounds more like that of selfish swing voters in that they care only for themselves or their own families, friends or communities. Like your friend who is ruining his life but can’t see the warning signs even though everyone is pointing them out, swing voters can’t see how insane they sound to the rest of us.

Often misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, the sentiment that “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money,” is nonetheless true. That’s been happening for the past several decades. The swing voter, rather than being our noblest, will likely be the one who does us in.


You should follow me on Twitter here and Facebook here.

Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USW3-055805-D DLC (b&w film neg.), Maria Ealand, photographer.

Not who I expected to meet

I had stepped out of the office to take a quick walk around the block. After sitting for hours staring at a computer screen I had to clear my head and stretch my legs.

As I rounded the first corner, an older black man was standing near the curb. He looked my way and we exchanged pleasantries. How you doing? Pretty good.

As I walked on, I thought I heard him saying something to me, so I turned around, and sure enough, he was. Usually, this is not a good sign in downtown Birmingham. If someone keeps talking to you after you’ve passed he’s usually hitting you up for money. Still, I didn’t want to be rude.

“You’re moving, aren’t you?” he said. “So you’re not just ‘pretty good.’ You’re good!”

“I guess you’re right,” I told him. “I’ll have to watch what I say from now on.”

“No guessing about it. I am right!” he said.

Little did I know that saying I was “pretty good” was going to get me into a 20-minute conversation. But it did.

The man introduced himself as John, said he was 81 years old and has been keeping the law office we were standing in front of clean for the past 30 years. And John has no sympathy for panhandlers.

“I offer ‘em a job. I say help me move these boxes and I’ll give you $2,” he said. “They don’t want that. They say, ‘My back’s bad.’ They want the money up front. They’re not going to spend it on something to eat.”

I told him about the woman up the street who once asked me for money because she hadn’t eaten in three days. “I told her to come across the street with me. I was getting lunch and I’d buy her whatever she wanted. She asked what they sold thee, and I told her sandwiches. ‘Oh, I don’t like sandwiches,’ she said.”

“She wanted to spend it on drugs,” John said.

John won’t give them money because he’s worked hard for what little he has, explaining he still puts in six days a week. He works so much partly because he likes the people who run the law office. “They respect me, and I respect them,” he said. He also does it to get away from his wife. “If you sit around and try to relax, she wants to know why you’re not doing something.”

Turns out that even though John has worked just around the block from me for the entire 15 years I’ve been at The Daily Planet I’ve never seen him. But he’s seen me.

“I see you walking around here all the time,” he said. “Out stretching your legs. You need a break. Working your brain is hard work, too.” He’s seen some of my co-workers, too. John’s not a busybody; he has to keep an eye on who’s around. “There’s plenty of people would rob you out here if you don’t pay attention.”

His house was hit by the April 27 tornadoes. While it is still livable, it needs repairs to keep out the rain. The insurance company, having to pay the hardest hit people first, told him to pay someone to fix it, then send them the bill. He understands that they're extremely busy, but doesn't have the money to pay a contractor, who wants half his pay up front. He had to borrow to get the work started. "That's all right. There's people who got it worse than me."

I'd tell you a lot more that John said, but he repeated himself a lot. And he spoke in almost a whisper, so sometimes it was hard to hear him over the passing cars headed home and the occasional wind gusts from an approaching storm.

I told him it was a pleasure meeting him, and we shook hands. Then he talked another 10 minutes. I finally had to pull myself away before my boss sent out a search party.

Besides, if I stayed too long it was going to be time for my lunch break, and I had planned to go meet an author I had interviewed a few weeks ago who was having a book signing in town. I had followed Jon Acuff on Twitter and Facebook for several months, and when his new book “Quitter” came out this month I requested an interview, which he was kind enough to do. Our circulation isn’t bad, but is far less than the audiences of “Fox & Friends” and “Dave Ramsey,” both of whom also had interviewed him about the book. So I was pleased he’d said yes.

Then he added Birmingham to his book tour, so I dropped by to meet him in case by the next time he’s in town you have to get a wristband and wait four hours to see him. He was complimentary of and thankful for my article, and introduced me to his wife. They had both gone to college at Samford University, which was only a mile or two from the book signing, so he was no stranger to the area. I had been toiling away at The Daily Planet all the years they’d both been earning their degrees right up the road a decade or so ago.

I had to get back to work, and Jon had to meet more fans and sign their books, so it was a far shorter conversation than I’d had with John, but it had been the only one of the two I had planned. Sometimes serendipity steps in. Jon’s book, “Quitter,” is about achieving your dream job while staying with your day job. Jon has found his dream job in writing and speaking full time. John has found his dream job cleaning a law office six days a week at the age of 81. They both were two of the happiest people I’ve met.


You should follow me on Twitter here and Facebook here.

Photo: Library of Congress: Alfred T. Palmer, Carpenter at work on Douglas Dam, Tennessee (TVA), June 1942

The Laugher Curve: Why do dumbest sitcoms get more chortles?

My wife and I were watching Three’s Company on TV Land the other night.

Let me start over: Three’s Company came on TV Land the other night and I made a move to turn it off, but my wife said, “You’re not turning that off, are you?”

So, of course, I did not.

My wife has a fascination with the ‘70s that I do not share. I see it as the decade of ugly clothes, ugly hair and idiotic sitcom writing. Some of the music was good, but I’d rather not actually look at the people making it. It’s kind of like how you don’t want to watch sausage being made.

But to preserve marital harmony I watched the episode even though laughter was not calling for me. Jack’s brother was coming for a visit and Jack was none too pleased. His brother was a show-off and constantly talked down to Jack.

In the course of things, Jack’s brother wrangles a date with Chrissy and as she arrives home very late, Jack opens the door to find her and his brother in a steamy goodnight kiss.

The audience reacts, but you can hear one guy exclaim, “Oh, no!”

“Did you hear that?” I asked my wife.

I rewound the DVR, and there he was. He actually sounded like someone from the ‘40s –- Edward G. Robinson, to be specific. “Oh, no! See!” (Think Clancy Wiggum from The Simpsons if you’re too young to know who Edward G. Robinson is.)

I paused it, rewound it, and listened again and again. Then we’d repeat the line ourselves. We got the giggles so bad we could hardly breathe.

Later it hit me: This show had no canned laughter. The audience was genuinely reacting. And I’m not saying that’s a good thing, because it was a really stupid show.

Pay attention to a program, however, that is truly funny and you’ll notice that they have to juice up the laughter by resurrecting dead people who were originally splitting their sides at Lucy Ricardo’s latest caper. Cosmo Kramer, you’ve got a lot of ‘splainin’ to do!

Have we lost our sense of humor? And, if so, when and how did it happen?

Was it Watergate? Or 1968?

Whatever it was, it was no laughing matter.

You should follow me on Twitter here and Facebook here.