kata Drew

The second presidential debate is tonight starting at 9:00PM (EST) at Belmont University.

C-SPAN is offering a live video feed for free.

Here’s a link which you can paste into VLC or WMP:

http://play.rbn.com/play.asx?url=cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan1v.asf&proto=mms?mswmext=.asx

Alternatively, you can watch with the players I’ve embedded below:

Read more..

Isn’t it true that we want an intelligent, “smart” president? In all the talk of Mitt Romney the Mormon, his run for the presidency, and religious test for office, I have not heard anyone mention the intellectual respectability of the man in that he’s Mormon. If a presidential candidate denies that we’ve been to the moon, that brings into question, in my mind, that man’s intellectual respectability. What do I mean by intellectual respectability? Maybe: how likely I am to look at someone and say, “That is an intelligent, learned man I want running the country.” Romney’s Mormonism calls into question his intellectual respectability. Does that make him a dumb fellow? Nope, I know smart Mormons and I know crass Christians (in fact, I’m one at times). But, that Romney knowingly and willfully accepts Mormonism, a heretical, extra-Christian faith, diminishes his intellectual respectability.

Now, saying this brings up a host of problems. First, for whom would I vote, if they be not Christian, for wouldn’t anyone not Christian similarly be considered to lack intellectual respectability for rejecting Christianity? Second, wouldn’t some consider me to lack intellectual respectability that I am a Christian? Third, simply because Romney’s a Mormon doesn’t make him unintelligent.

In response to the third question I would agree that that Romney is a Mormon does not make him unintelligent, but it decreases my respect for his intellect and moreover his fitness for presidency. Mormonism as a religion and Romney as an adherent are not the problem with his intellectual respectability, but what Mormonism teaches and denies, claims running against fact. So, that Romney would subscribe to such a religion casts doubt in my mind on the man’s ability intellectually to serve our nation. But, there are people that question the same of George W.

(Disclaimer: I don’t like politics. I don’t plan on talking a lot about the presidential race; others more intelligent and qualified do so. Look to them. This, however, is a thought I’ve had on my mind for a while and wanted to throw out there, hoping that someone would engage it).

In the middle of the American Civil War President Lincoln found it meet to establish as a national holiday that Thursday in November which since 1863 we have celebrated as Thanksgiving. The following is his Thanksgiving Proclamation calling the nation to give thanks and “praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens” starting in November of that year, 1863. Note the proper, reverential place given God, especially where it reads, “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful Providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Being at Whole Foods on a Sunday morning in Durham, North Carolina (home of Duke University), is to be in one of the most densely educated [paronomasia] areas in America, possibly the world.

Theology I (Dr. Keathley)

• If you’re attending Southeastern and getting the Southern Baptist discount (1/2 off tuition) and plan on not serving in a Southern Baptist church and giving back to the Cooperative Program (which pays that other half of your tuition) after you graduate, you should go down to the Business Office right now and tell them not to give you the discount and start paying the regular price

New Testament I (Dr. Black)

• I can’t pray unless the Holy Spirit prays, but the Holy Spirit won’t pray unless I pray; prayer is an inter-trinitarian process.
• “Abba” was an intimate word used by a son to a father wherein obedience (not love) is at the core. The essence of “Abba” is “not my will but yours be done.”

Church History I (Dr. Hogg)

• Early on (at the time of Jerome) baptisms were done in the nude. (How symbolic of casting off that which is earthly and being born again!)
• In translating the Bible into Latin (what would later become the Vulgate) Jerome started to translate the Apocrypha, but ceased doing so, considering them uninspired and not Scripture. The apocryphal material was added back into the Vulgate after his death (in a sub-Jerome translation) and continue to be in the canon of the Catholic church today.

Baptist History (Dr. Harper)

• We think of America being founded on religious liberty for all but, at the time of the colonies, one was only aloud freedom of religious expression insofar as one practiced the denomination of that particular colony. Consequently, to practice otherwise was met with persecution.

The Albert Mohler Radio Program

• Tuesday - Dr. Mohler interviews Dr. Patterson (President of Southwestern Seminary) about a new degree program in their college that has caused a lot of media attention and controversy: a degree in the humanities with an emphasis in homemaking. The point of the program is this: there are those women who have both the desire and ability to be a stay-at-home homemaker, or those women who may find themselves on the mission field needing to make clothes and subsist without electricity and running water; this program is to equip those women. The program is open to women only (”as soon as we get a pregnant man walking in, we’ll sign him up”); but requires two years of both Classical Greek and Latin. Dr. Patterson invited any dissenters to come take the program and see if they can pass!

The Way of the Master Radio

• Wednesday - The hosts of the program are on tour in Europe and toured the John Bunyan museum in England (which reminds me that I need to finish Pilgrim’s Progress). This podcast takes the listener right through the museum with the crew.