Guns and Living Alone

“It’s not living alone if you keep a rifle under the bed.”
–   Chuck Palahniuk

Have you backed up your computer recently?

If you haven’t… you should. My fieldwork church recently lost a lot of date because they assumed things were being backed up automatically. Needless to say, they were not.

I recomend at least two layers of protection. First find a free (or cheap) online service. I use .Mac since I got it cheap with my computer. I sync all of my seminary files to this account. Even if my computer is completely shot, I can still get to these files using another computer. The other level of protection I recomend is burning DVDs/CDs. I burn one every few weeks of all my documents. Another thing I do is sync every so often to an external hard drive.

You might think that taking the time to back-up would be a hassle. The time spent know pales in comparision to the time it will cost you later to re-do documents and salvaging priceless pictures.

Lutheran Carnival XLII

Gregory House, M.Div is the host of Lutheran Carnival XLII. He has hijacked one of my posts for inclusion in this issue of the carnival. He did an excellent job. His choice of the Rev. Dr. David Adams as the featured Lutheran for this carnival is appropriate. The sermon he references is amazing. I only wish I could have been there to see him preach it live. He is an amazing preacher!

The next Lutheran Carnival will be hosted by at Saint Charles’ Place.

Reasons to Ban Guns (Humor)

If you know me very well… you know that I am NOT in favor of gun control. My view is that we should enforce the the laws that are on the books and punish violent criminals to the fullest extent of the law. The “Chaplain to the World” has given us some good humor that deals with gun control.

My personal favorites are:

2. Washington DC’s low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Indianapolis’ high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control.

6. The more helpless you are the safer you are from criminals.

8. A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.

10. The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns; just like Guns & Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.

12. The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, refers to the National Guard, which was created 130 years later, in 1917.

23. Ordinary people in the presence of guns turn into slaughtering butchers but revert to normal when the weapon is removed.

24. Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun shows.28. The right of Internet pornographers to exist cannot be questioned because it is constitutionally protected by the Bill of Rights, but the use of handguns for self defense is not really protected by the Bill of Rights.

36. Citizens don’t need to carry a gun for personal protection but police chiefs, who are desk-bound administrators who work in a building filled with cops, need a gun.

39. Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their duty weapon.

40. Handgun Control, Inc., says they want to “keep guns out of the wrong hands.” Guess what? You have the wrong hands.

Conduct of the Service

From: Cyberstones

The new edition of The Conduct of the Service is now available. The book contains Piepkorn’s pamphlet from 1965, McClean’s expansion from 1972, and the actual rubrics themselves from The Lutheran Liturgy. This is an essential volume for the Lutheran pastor and all students of the Liturgy. Go to the link above and you can see how to purchase it from Reedemer Press using Paypal. I highly recomend this book. I have used the previous reprint and I must say this one looks much better! (I am slightly biased… Since I helped proofread this copy).

What are you waiting for… go buy it!

False Understandings of Luther and Lutheranism

If you have been Lutheran for any length of time I’m sure you have been asked questions or heard statements such as:

• My pastor said you guys are cannibals. (This has happened at least twice for me)
• Don’t you all hate the Jews?
• You worship Luther.
• You believe that only Lutherans go to heaven.
• If it weren’t for the pope you’d be Roman Catholic.

The list could go on and on.

In the Lutheran blog world there have been two recent posts that highlight this issue of “False Understandings of Luther and Lutheranism.” Check them out at Kelly’s Blog and the Cantor’s Padded Balcony. Enjoy.

Goodbye Blogger! Hello WordPress!

This will be my last post on blogger (probably). I’m moving over to WordPress. The options are better and I’m tired of having formatting problems.

My new site is still titled Nerd Heaven. Here is the feed.

Thanks for reading! Hope you will join me at my new blog!

St. Louis 80 – Ft. Wayne 50

I’m proud (but not too proud) that the Concordia Seminary Preachers defeated the Concordia Theological Seminary King’s Men 80-50. It was a great game to watch. The Seminary Chorus sang the National Anthem before the game, the brass choir served as the pep band, and the stands were full. The half-time “show” was a two-on-two basketball game between a team  made up of Drs. Gibbs and Voelz and a team made up of Drs. Marrs and Raabe. Drs. Gibbs and Voelz schooled Marrs and Raabe.

All in all a good game. Props to Ft. Wayne for playing hard and making this one of the best basketball games this year.

Projects Underway

I’m currently working on migrating over to wordpress. Hopefully this will be completed in the next few weeks.

In addition, I am working on a project where I am inputting the calendars from Lutheran Service Book into iCal. I will make this available to Mac users as soon as it is completed. Hopefully I will find a way to transfer this into a comparable format that windoze users can use.

Concordia Seminary and iTunes

If you haven’t heard already Concordia Seminary has partnered with Apple to get set up on iTunes U. You can either download directly to iTunes or you can subscribe to items as podcasts. In addition, there are video files to be downloaded in addition to some documents. Most files you can download in a high or low quality if you have bandwith problems. To access this media go to the seminary website, look at the right hand column and click on iTunes U. You can also access it directly by clicking here. The links don’t always play nice with Firefox (they’re working on it) so I encourage you to use Safari (for those blessed with a mac) and IE for those who must trudge though life on a PC.

Here is what is currently available on iTunes:

• Semcast: A dialogue between our President, the Rev. Dr. Dale Meyer and various professors and church men from around the world. Topics have included Old and New Testament perspectives on homosexuality, the Da Vinci Code, and Pastoral Formation.
• Theological Symposium 2006: Files from our 2006 symposium that was centered around the topic of “Recapturing a Full-Bodied Theology of the Resurrection: Christ and Our’s.”
• Lutheran Confessions: An Overview: This is an opportunity for a person to go through the Lutheran Confessions with Drs. Charles Arand and Robert Kolb.
• Dellinger Lecture 2006: Cal Thomas was the presenter. Evaluate for yourself… I haven’t had a chance to listen to this yet.
• Convocation 2006: There is only one file up now… Dr. Charles Gieschen from Ft. Wayne presenting on “Antichrist: Has the Biblical Evidence Been Left Behind?” I’m sure more files will be posted as we have more convocations.
• Chapel sermons: This is self-explanatory.

Professors have also begun using iTunes U for coursework. This also includes our Greek and Christian Doctrine pre-seminary courses. The current courses up on iTunes U include Hebrew Readings and Exodus and the Torah.

The final section of our iTunes U site is “Congregational Resources.” This section includes:

• Lectionary at Lunch: A group of professors who go through the lectionary readings for the following week. Highly recommended.
• Lay Bible Institute: Evaluate yourself. I haven’t checked this one out.
• Hebrew Club: Evaluate yourself. I haven’t checked this one out.
• Evangelism DVD Project: Evaluate yourself. I haven’t checked this one out.

10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time

Go check out this website. Absolutely hilarious. I personally like the Atomic Energy List and the Johnny Reb Cannon. Enjoy!

HT: Slashdot

Die, Heretic Scum

Walking across a bridge, I saw a man on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: “Stop. Don’t do it.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Well, there’s so much to live for!”

“Like what?”

“Are you religious?”

He said: “Yes.”

I said: “Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?”

“Christian.”

“Me, too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?”

“Protestant.”

“Me, too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”

“Baptist.”

“Me, too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Church of the Lord?”

“Baptist Church of God.”

“Me, too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or Reformed Baptist Church of God?”

“Reformed Baptist Church of God.”

“Me, too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?”

He said: “Reformation of 1915.”

I said: “Die, heretic scum,” and pushed him off.

Thanks to incarnatus est

The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time

Go check out this website. Absolutely hilarious. I personally like the Atomic Energy List and the Johnny Reb Cannon. Enjoy!

HT: Slashdot