The OOC

After reading this article, I wonder why proponents of a genetic component of homosexuality are working so hard to prove that homosexuality is a genetic disposition. Are they homosexual advocates or do they want to eliminate homosexuality? I believe that they are trying to relieve discrimination, however, their work will instead increase the discrimination of parents to their unborn children. If they can pinpoint a gene, then they can manipulate the genetic code to make a person heterosexual, and eventually eliminate homosexuality. The homosexual child will never be born.
I’ve heard so many times “You’re born that way”. Today, more and more gays and lesbians are beginning to acknowledge that it is a choice that they have made. That concerns me more than the “born that way” argument. It reveals that homosexuality is more attractive than it has been in the past. It also proves Romans 1:24-32 to be true.

OpinionJournal.com’s Best of the Web Today last week covered a story from The American Enterprise magazine about how the pursuit of “diversity” on campus leads to racial and religious discrimination (quoting David French):

When I applied to teach at Cornell Law School, an interviewer noticed my evangelical background and asked, “How is it possible for you to effectively teach gay students?” If I had not given what I consider to be, in all modesty, an absolutely brilliant answer to the question, I don’t think I would have gotten the job. I sat in admissions committee meetings at Cornell in which African-American students who expressed conservative points of view were disfavored because “they had not taken ownership of their racial identity.” An evangelical student was almost rejected before I pointed out that the reviewer’s statement that “they did not want Bible-thumping or God-squading on campus” was illegal and immoral.

After the BOTW wondered aloud (er, in print, er electronicly) what his answer was, French emailed to tell them:

I was surprised and pleased to see that you quoted from my talk to the American Enterprise Institute regarding intellectual diversity (or the lack thereof) and censorship on campus. I noted that you want to know my “absolutely brilliant answer” to the improper interview question. Before I tell you, I just want to make clear that the “absolutely brilliant” comment was made tongue-in-cheek in the speech and was played for laughs. I’m not really quite so full of myself. The truth is that I was fortunate to get the job perhaps in spite of my answer. I responded to the interviewer with the following statement:

“I believe that all human beings are created in the image of God and should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of whether I agree with their personal conduct or beliefs. I will treat all my students well, but I can’t guarantee that they will treat me well when they learn that I’m a dreaded ‘Christian conservative.’ ”

She responded with a long silence and then said, “I never thought of things from that perspective.”

Great response, no? I’d like to think that I would compose myself and my answer in such a way as to be truthful and graceful, and honor God in the process.

What do you expect? I’ve posted an article and a link on my blog about teens and chores, and about why “science” proves that teens can’t be *truly* lazy or careless when it comes to carrying out instructions. It’s just interesting that Mardi Keyes’ article makes this very observation.

At the retreat (which my family also enjoyed thoroughly by the way), Jerram Barrs spoke about parenting, and he mentioned an article written by Mardi Keyes on the topic of adolescence. Ron Lutjens mentioned that there is a copy in the church library, and there is. I also found a .pdf file at Ransom Fellowship’s site. click the link below to read this outstanding article.

Youth Culture and Growing Up

You may be interested in reading others of the wealth of articles at Ransom Fellowship. You can find a list of all the articles here. (There’s a link at the top of most of these pages to get .pdf files.

Doh, I thought I was going to get to be the one to break the 6 week silence here. Darn that Joel Keen for posting about Star Wars before I had a chance! Now I’ll have to comment on that post too. Oh well, I’ll still throw out a couple of thoughts I had while avoiding work…

First of all, Go Cards!

Secondly, (believe it or not I have more on my little mind than baseball) I thought I’d bring up how great the retreat was a couple of weeks ago. The Nelson family had a wonderful time getting to know several people better and spending time at a really terrific place – even got to smoke a pipe around the campfire with some fellow pipe smokers! Truly community building and fun. Which brings me to this:

T.S. Eliot wrote in Choruses from the Rock:

What life have you, if you have not life together?
There is not life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of GOD.

This is a quote that has been banging around in the back of my head for about the past 10 years. The community that is Old Orchard Church is truly a blessing. Sure, we are broken and twisted and in many ways I’m sure we fail one another, but we are also a little spot of light doing our best to love one another as Christ has loved us.

Now before I get too mushy and cheesy; anybody out here have thoughts on what it looks like to be a community when many of us don’t live close enough to actually get together on a regular basis? I know this is something that gets hashed around quite a bit in Christendom, but I’m curious if anyone as any particular thoughts as it’s something that is often on my mind.

STLtoday – Entertainment – Movies

The P-D had this review about the last installment of the “Star Wars” hex-ilogy. I’ve never been a fan of these films (I actually never saw any of the original three in their entirety until they were re-released before the first of the prequel movies), but this seems to sum up what I’ve expierenced of all of them.

Any other thoughts about this series? Any ruffled feathers?

Hey, I hope everyone is enjoying the first week of Baseball. We are having perfect opening week weather. Go Cards.

If you need some springtime reading to supplement “Baseball Tonight” One of my favorite works of fiction, “The Brothers K” by David James Duncan might fit the bill. Here is a link to a great review of the book at Ransom Fellowship.

Since we at the Orchard have been slowing increasing our repertoire of Indelible Grace hymns during worship, I figured the following links to new music from friends of IG (from the latest IG mailing) might interest you:

• Jars of Clay – REDEMPTION SONGS
• Christopher Miner – ALL GOOD THINGS COME FROM THE DESERT
• St. Pat’s – THINE ALL THE MERITS: Celtic/classically-tinged worship produced by IG alum Blayne Chastain.
• Red Mountain Music – THE GADSBY PROJECT: Birmingham folks release third project with no signs of slowing down.

The Jars of Clay (popularly known for “Flood”) site is nice because it has streaming audio of their album (which is mostly well-done covers of IG tunes) and allows you to select tracks yourself. OOCers will recognize track 11. Also, listen to the funkified version of “It Is Well” and the unique take on “Nothing But the Blood.”

Insightful article on why “American Idol” is refreshingly judgmental in today’s WSJ Taste page:

Ostensibly the whole point of “American Idol” is to watch a field of amateur singers get whittled down from the initial thousands of contestants to the current cast of 10, and then to see them voted off one by one until at last we come to the real-life American Idol. … But none of this accounts for the massive appeal of the show, which is just a high-stakes karaoke contest. The real draw, I suspect, is the judges, each of whom acts as a kind of stand-in for a moral idea–a theory of justice, if you will–at work in America today.

Even if you don’t watch it, you’ll appreciate the article, I think.

TheStar.com – Why Schiavo case worries the disabled

This is an interesting article from (of all places) Canada. Read it and comment away.