Mediocrity Reigns!

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh today and one of his callers brought up an interesting point. I only caught the tale end of the call, but the gist was this whole idea of mediocrity.

This caller was speaking on the effects of attacking excellence. What he said was that if you attack excellence it will scare people, but if you elevate mediocrity it will accomplish the same thing.

People will be frightened by any attack on anything that is clearly deemed excellence, as long as they can still identify excellence, but if you slowly elevate mediocrity, eventually it will cloud excellence, and excellence will become unrecognizable.

What we have today in this country is a reign of mediocrity. What has helped this become reality is that there has been no moral fiber sown into the fabric of this country for many years. Couple this with the idea of tolerance and what you have is the reign of mediocrity, and this is what America is today.

Just look what took place today. The bailout bill failed because 95 Democrats voted it down yet you have politicians like Barney Frank blaming 12 Republicans. Why? There is no fear at all! What is to fear? The media is firmly liberal and mediocrity reigns.

There is actually audio and video evidence of Barney Frank in 2004 stating clearly that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were not in trouble, and today, the same Barney Frank standing up proudly proclaiming that all of this is not his fault or his party's fault. Why? Mediocrity reigns and excellence is unrecognizable.

What took place today is either the end of the world as we know it, or it is the beginning of the end of the reign of mediocrity. I am not sure which will occur, but either way, our Lord still reigns. Praise God!

It is Time!

I can not believe what I see happening in Washington D.C. these days. The Federal Government is going to spend trillions of dollars to bail out failed banks and insurance corporations. Does this upset you? Well, it should!

Your hard earned cash will be going to bail out those who, over the years, have raised your insurance rates, paid you less to use your money and invested that money so poorly that it caused our current financial mess. Why?

Washington is broken! This bailout bill promises to be loaded with needless spending just like every other bill over the last 20 years. Newt Gingrich was interviewed on the bailout plan and had some interesting things to say. Click HERE to read his entire interview. Which brings me to the title of my post: It is time to do something! But what?

It is simple; we - the people - have the ability to change things. The problem with the government is that too many politicians have too much power. That power comes from committee assignments and seniority to name only two, and that power can be taken away if the people chose to take it away. How?

The people must vote in term limits. I know there is not one politician in office that will pass a bill in support of such an amendment, but there really is no need to do that. We are the ones that vote, and we can impose term limits simply by voting.

To make such a plan work there must be a blog or a website devoted to such a cause. The site would keep track of each politician and post who needs to be voted out this coming election. I believe that if two terms are sufficient for a president then two terms for every politician ought to suffice as well.

Here is how all this would work. Joe Senator is elected and serves his two terms as a Democratic senator but is running for a third term. The site would post that Joe Senator has served his two terms as a Democratic senator; he is then put in the "do not elect" section. The people see that and do not vote for him. The seat is open and two new candidates run for the seat. This prevents any one senator from becoming too powerful and influential and succumbing to the temptation of corruption.

This is just an idea, but it is free for the taking. We must do something. Washington does not stand for the people anymore, and I am saddened by what I see now and fearful of what my children will see tomorrow. Blessings!

A New Take on Schools

Last week I read an interesting article on the editorial page of our local paper. John Ehinger wrote about a recent report entitled, "Alabama's Public Education Dilemma: Does Funding Influence Outcome?" The author of this report is John R. Hill.

In this report, Hill looked at education "inputs" such as money and "outcomes" such as test scores and found something interesting. What he found is that there is no direct correlation between the input of more money and the output of higher test scores.

He found something else interesting in this report. According to Hill, what really lowers test scores is the situation of the student's family. Kids growing up in a single parent home often struggle.

The article is worth reading; click HERE to read the entire article. Blessings!

The Future

One of our parents, Mr. Marty Sellers, sent this photo to me. Thanks Marty! It is of our new campus rising out of the ground. God has done so much for our school.

In the lower left, off of the football field is our concession/public restroom facility which was completed this past week. Below that is our first academic building: a two story 24 classroom building with an atrium connecting it to our 1,000 seat gymnasium with double locker rooms. Not yet in the picture is our field house; construction for that will begin after football season.

This is the new campus of Westminster Christian Academy. Our desire is not to build a fence but to engage culture for our Lord. We desire to be a resource for all of Huntsville and change the world...one student at a time...all for the glory of our Lord and Savior.

They have no clue...

I have always been taught not to speak about things I know little or nothing about. The phrase now emblazoned on buttons just might be the most offensive thing ever uttered by those who have no clue how offensive they really are.

The goal of the phrase is to link Sara Palin to Pontius Pilot, as they both were governors, or so the implication goes. Without even going into all the issues with the governor reference, the real issue is the promotion Jesus Christ as a community organizer. It is not about community organizers, but it is certainly about who is Jesus Christ?

My Bible has no reference to Jesus every referring to himself as a community organizer. Here are some of the ways He does refer to Himself:

In Matthew 12:8, "For the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath."

In Luke 22:70 Jesus is before Pilot and Herod, "They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?"
"He replied, "You are right in saying I am."

In John 4:25-26, "The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When He comes He will explain everything to us."
"Then Jesus declares, "I who speak to you am he."

In John 5:24 Jesus states, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life."

And, in John chapters 6-10, Jesus talks about who He is and never once does He mention that he came to help organizer communities, make life fair or melt the classes into one. He came to give eternal life to those who believe in Him. He came so that those who believe in Him might know the Father (John 8:19) and know that He is the Truth (John 8:31-59).

And finally, Jesus states clearly who he is in John 11:25-26,

"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

Amen!

Grandmother the Hero

Grandmothers are suppose to be sweet and vulnerable, at least that is what one 17-year-old burglar thought until he ran into 85-year-old Leda Smith of Pennsylvania. It seems that this 17-year-old boy broke into Leda Smith's home on August 18th. According to World Magazine, "the boy awoke Smith who then grabbed for the .22 caliber revolver near her bedside. Only when the intruder heard the sound of the pistol cocking did he realize Smith had the bead on him."

According to the police, "Smith then told the young man to dial 911 from her white slimeline living room phone and report himself." The young man wisely complied. Smith then told the young man, "Don't attempt to throw the phone at me, or do anything bad or I'll just shoot you." Police answered the 911 call and "arrived to find the boy spread-eagle on her living room floor with the 85-year-old perched over him with the gun."

Congratulations to Leda Smith for refusing to become a victim!

Matt Damon's Rant

Apparently one of the requirements to be the next vice president of the United States is for Matt Damon to know you. In an interview recently, he stated that he does not know Sara Palin and doubts he will know her any better over the next eight weeks so...Sara Palin is not qualified to be vice president.

What I want to know is this: what qualification does Mr. Damon have that would cause me to give his views any more weight than say...my eight year old son? He is an actor, and therefore gets media attention, but then he uses that power to spread fallacies and falsehoods about a potential candidate. I would say the latter half of that statement would disqualify him from being seriously considered to be any sort of resource on who should be the next vice president.

The interview is disturbing as he throws out words and statistics that sound impressive, that is unless you know what they actually mean or care to look them up. For example, he states that according to the actuary tables, there is a very real possibility that McCain could die in office. John McCain is 71 years old. According to the actuarial tables, John McCain has 12.64 more years to actual live, statistically speaking. Mr. Damon stated that there was a 1 in 3 chance that McCain would die in office. If my math is correct, and we are conservative in our numbers, McCain should live until the ripe old age of 81, and that more than covers two terms.

Mr. Damon goes on to talk about two questions he would like Pain to answer: the first is if Palin believes that dinosaurs roamed the earth 4,000 years ago? And, the second is this: he would like to know if she burned books? We know the latter is a solid no, but what about the first? Did dinosaurs roam the earth 4,000 years ago? This geological time frame question is as controversial as this election. The real facts are that neither side has concrete scientific proof that supports an answer. Please, do not give me the carbon 14 dating answer as that is just as unreliable as the next answer.

Carbon-14 is created in the upper atmosphere as nitrogen atoms are bombarded by cosmic radiation. For every one trillion carbon-12 atoms, you will find one carbon-14atom. The carbon-14 that results from the reaction caused by cosmic radiation quickly changes to carbon dioxide, just like normal carbon-12 would. The carbon-14 dioxide is utilized by plants in the same way normal carbon dioxide is. This carbon-14 dioxide then ends up in humans and other animals as it moves up the food chain.

There is then a ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the bodies of plants, humans, and other animals that can fluctuate, but it will be fixed at the time of death. After death, the carbon-14 would begin to decay. In 1948, Dr. W.F. Libby introduced the carbon-14 dating method at the University of Chicago. The premise behind the method is to determine the ratio of carbon-14 left in organic matter, and by doing so, estimate how long ago death occurred by running the ratio backwards. The accuracy of this method, however, relies on several faulty assumptions. I will only mention one as that should be all that is needed when testing a scientific hypothesis.

For carbon-14 dating to be accurate, one must assume the rate of decay of carbon-14 has remained constant over all years. Evidence indicates the opposite. Experiments performed using the radioactive isotopes of uranium-238 and iron-57 have shown that rates can and do vary. In fact, when the environment's surrounding changes for the samples, decay rates do alter.

To make carbon-14 dating work, one must assume that the amount of carbon-14 being presently produced had equaled the amount of carbon-12, assuming that they had reached a balance. The natural formation of carbon-14 will increase with time; at the time of creation, it was probably at or near zero. Of course there will be those who refute even these claims and continue to trust the carbon 14 dating method because it supports what they believe.

For me there are some fairly sizable assumptions that one must make to trust carbon 14 dating. So far, science has made many past assumptions that have been proven false, and God's word, as of today, is still not yet been proven false as every archaeological discovery has affirmed the truth of the scriptures.

Back to Mr. Damon's rant, he fulfills my prophecy of a week ago. He hates her, and he does not even know her because...she is the anti-him. I encourage you to click HERE to watch the interview.

We must demand the truth from those who wish to speak publicly about issues. Those who have the power of media must be made to back up their comments with facts. When we, Christians, speak in public about issues we must also speak the truth, and speak it in love with facts to back up our claims. Blessings!

The Marginalization of Faith

Steven C. Vryhof writes, "the explicit and implicit pressure to marginalize faith positions compromises communities of meaning, making it difficult for members to make sense of the world using memory and to order their lives using vision."

Vryhof quotes C.S. Lewis because Lewis also recognized this very issue. Lewis wrote years ago that, "the avoiding of God in many times and places has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race failed to achieve it. But in our own time and place it is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads of the beaten track...keep the radio on. Live in a crowd."

Can you see these things in current culture? Listen to the news and you will hear thought that is standardized and void of any higher categories. As culture continues to spiral out of control, our faith becomes victim to the cultural problem. And, there is a cultural problem.

Sidney Callahan, a professor at St. Johns University writes that, "the decaying culture of individualism denies moral realities or truths or ultimate meanings that possess the moral authority to impose overriding moral claims on the person or on the group. If the only meaning one recognizes is that which is constructed by the individual self, then farewell to the ongoing cultural quest for the True, the Good - for God. Since the self must make up its own rules without guidance or authority emanating from the morally real, it becomes very hard to sacrifice one's self interest for a cause - any cause."

And, that is what we find ourselves looking into today. Vaclav Havel puts it best,
"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bother him less and less."

What use to make men blush now makes men proud. Our problem is not our culture; our problem is that our culture is our faith and that is the true marginalization of my faith and your faith. What are we to do? I believe C.S. Lewis gave us a place to begin. I leave you with one final Vryhof quote from Richard Ford, winner of the 1996Pulitzer Prize for Fiction:

"Put simply, the pace of life feels morally dangerous to me."

Students and Christian Education

I am so proud of our students. Tonight I was in attendance as our volleyball team played Johnson. They took all three games, but, more importantly, they improved since the last time I observed them play. They improved in every facet of the game of volleyball, but they also improved in their maturity and spirituality. I watched their coach instruct them during lost points and won points, and I watched the face of each girl as they listened intently in order to get better.

As all of our 6 grade -12 grade students endure a year in temporary facilities, they have been inspirational. They are excited and have taken ownership of their school. Students are why we do what we do. Christian education is so very important to me for several reasons.

1. Education is supposed to collide with morality. We have all heard the old clique, with great wisdom comes great responsibility. At WCA that is exactly what I see developing in our students, a great sense of responsibility.
2. Whether you are a Christian or just a patriotic citizen, you will understand that successful education must produce students who strive to work for the greater good. That involves a selfless attitude and that attitude will only be produced in a system that is rooted in the truth. That is a school that is rooted in Christ.
3. Education rooted in Christ is education that has, as its foundation, the truth, and that makes all the difference in the world. It is the truth that produces a consistent solid worldview that will not fail our students when the world throws everything it has at them.

This is why what we do is so very important. It is our students that are leading the way for us. I love them and am honored that God has called me to be part of them. This is Westminster!

Football and Christian Education

What does football have to do with Christian education? My answer may surprise you. I believe football has much to do with Christian education.

First, if it is something that we decide to do as a school, then it will be something that we do with excellence.

Second, football, in this day and age, is a learning opportunity that we can provide our boys to learn how to be boys in all the right ways. This has huge ramifications for the type of faculty, staff and coaches we seek at Westminster.

And finally, football, like most of athletics, provides a venue in which to learn many things, but one of the most important lessons learned is that in order to be successful on the football field each player needs to learn the following lesson: true unity and collective success is only found when each member of the team understands that they must sacrifice in order to achieve team success. This sacrifice must occur from the head coach all the way down to the last volunteer.

Last night, in our home opener, we all saw our football team take two steps forward. We saw this team make mistakes and fall behind 20 - 0 in the first quarter to the 4th ranked 2A team in the state. But, then something happened! This team began to believe in itself and slowly started to crawl back into this game. They began to move the ball on a defense that, last week, only gave up 18 points to Lee, a 5A school. Their defense began to step forward and stop the run, forcing a run-oriented team to turn to the pass. This team became a team that sudden believed it could compete with anyone!

Sadly, we did lose this game, but, in my opinion, never has a lose won so much. As I walked through the locker room, our players were dejected with the loss, but not in the normal way. I saw in the eyes of these young men and growing confidence in their ability to compete with anyone. I saw in them what I see in our school, a readiness to take on the world for our Lord and Savior.

Football and Christian education...it fits with our mission. At Westminster Christian Academy, we feel the Lord has called us to provide, first, an education that will produce graduates who can think critically and in higher categories, discern in order to determine the false prophets and wolves in sheep's clothing of the day and stand firm for the truth and their Savior in a sea of ambiguity and hostility.

But, we also feel called, as a school, to engage culture. We go to Brockway, our new campus, not to build a fence and hid from the world; on the contrary, we go to Brockway to engage culture by being part of Huntsville, being part of Alabama, and being part of our country in order to bring glory to our Lord by way of excellence. We believe that competition, even in education, spurs us on towards love, good deeds and excellence.

The next time you see the 'W' above remember it is a 'W' with a special meaning. Contained within that one letter is a school that strives to provide education that is rooted in Christ and excellent in all things, including every one of our athletic programs. At Westminster, how we do something is as important to us as the results of what we do.

This is Westminster Christian Academy!

D.A. Carson and Culture

Recently Derek Thomas interviewed D.A. Carson. During the course of that interview Carson answered the following question: "Why don't you like the terminology of 'redeeming the culture'?"

Carson's answer to this question is worth reading. I have put it below. Please read it twice; you will be glad that you did. Blessings!

"Redemption terminology in the NT is so bound up with Christ's work for and in the church that to extend it to whatever good we do in the broader world risks a shift in focus. Not for a moment do I want to deny that we are to serve as salt and light, that exiles may be called to do good in the pagan cities where Providence has appointed them to live (Jer 29), that every square foot of this world is under Christ's universal reign (even though that reign is still being contested), that the nations of the world will bring their "goods" into the Jerusalem that comes down from above. But many of those who speak easily and fluently of redeeming the culture soon focus all their energy shaping fiscal and political policies and the like, and merely assume the gospel. A gospel that is merely assumed, that does no more than perk away in the background while the focus of our attention is on the "redemption" of the culture in which we find ourselves, is lost within a generation or two. At the same time, I worry about Christians who focus their attention so narrowly on getting people "saved" that they care little about doing good to all people, even if especially to the household of God. Getting this right is not easy, and inevitably priorities will shift a little in various parts of the world, under various regimes. Part of the complexity of the discussion, I think, is bound up with what the church as church is responsible for, and what Christians as Christians are responsible for: I have argued that failure to make this distinction tends to lead toward sad conclusions."