I am way too emotionally invested in this series. I am dejected. What a heartbreaker.Though Dirk Nowitzki didn’t seem to be channeling David Hasselhoff (see previous post), Josh Howard seemed to be channeling Chris Webber. Josh Howard really messed up in calling the time-out when he did. Anyway, here’s the coverage of game 5 of the NBA Finals in the Dallas Morning News: “Burned: Heat outlasts Mavs, 101-100.†P.S. The officiating was horrible. Wade didn’t deserve that last foul. He went in clean and just missed a lay-up.
-
-
Can Nowitzki Channel Hasselhoff While Shooting Jump Shots?
I am a sucker for the underdog, and therefore I am a sucker for our hometeam, the Dallas Mavericks. I was a manager at the Mavericks’ practice facility back in the bad old days when they used to lose all the time. It was really sad back then when they just couldn’t get a break.But now things have changed, and all of us here in Dallas have our hopes set on a championship. Yet after watching the Mavs lose a heartbreaker on Tuesday and an ego-crusher on Thursday, many of us are beginning to feel that sinking feeling in our stomachs again. Those of us who are fans know that…
-
It’s a Baptist Thing, and E. J. Dionne Doesn’t Get It
Actually, it’s not just E. J. Dionne who’s offering an incorrect analysis of Frank Page’s election to the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Dionne and others are mistaking the dark horse for a trojan horse that would signal the beginning of the end of the conservative movement in the SBC. In a Washington Post editorial today, Dionne writes: Page’s upset victory could be very significant, both to the nation’s religious life and to politics. He defeated candidates supported by the convention’s staunchly conservative establishment, which has dominated the organization since the mid-1980s. His triumph is one of many signs that new breezes are blowing through the broader evangelical…
-
TIME Magazine Credits Bloggers for New SBC President
Have you seen TIME Magazine’s analysis of Frank Page’s election to the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention? Here’s the headline and the lead of the story written by David VanBiema: The Bloggers’ Favorite Southern Baptist: The upset victory of a non-anointed candidate to lead America’s largest Protestant denomination signals the growing power of online activists, even in old-line churches . . . For those who follow the internal politics of the Southern Baptist Convention . . . the most interesting news out of their annual meeting, held this week in Greensboro, N.C., is that bloggers elected a president (source). I don’t think that this analysis of the election is…
-
Derek Webb & CT on “Christian” Music
Readers of this blog know that Derek Webb and I are not on the same page politically and sometimes theologically (previous posts). Nevertheless, in an interview with Relevant magazine Webb has some salient reflections on the so-called “Christian” music industry. Here are the money lines: The whole secular/Christian thing is a total fiction. Don’t let your local Christian bookstore do your thinking for you and believe that everything they have there for sale is good and spiritually beneficial to you. If anything, we have proven that the Church unfortunately is identified with really poor art. The Church certainly does not have the market cornered on beauty. A lot of what…
-
Epilogue of a Non-Scandal
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has the best analysis of yesterday’s news about Karl Rove and the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation. I recommend that you read the entire piece, but here’s the gist of it. The tragedy of this episode is that a political fight over the war in Iraq was allowed to become a criminal matter. Mr. Wilson spun his false tale in an effort to discredit the war and deny Mr. Bush a second term. The liberal media put partisanship above their own interests in demanding a special counsel probe of “leaksâ€â€“until that probe turned on their own sources. The Attorney General at the time, John Ashcroft, passed…
-
“Turd Blossom†Will Not Be Indicted
There are new developments in a story that I began covering on this blog last year (see two previous posts).The news that Karl Rove (a.k.a. “Turd Blossom,†a nickname given to him by President Bush) will not be indicted in connection with the CIA leak case is probably the biggest political news of 2006. It’s big news because it puts a damper on Democrat efforts to use the 2006 mid-term elections as an occasion to accuse the Republicans of being the party of corruption. That effort did not work in the recent special congressional election in California, and the success of such a strategy in November looks even more unlikely…
-
Southern Baptist What?
Say it with me, “Southern Baptist Convention” (SBC). It’s the largest Protestant denomination in America, and they are having their annual meeting this week in Greensboro, North Carolina. Two items of interest are worth noting here. First, I wrote several months ago on this blog about a debate over Calvinism that would take place between SBC seminary Presidents Albert Mohler (for) and Paige Patterson (against). I want to direct your attention to several different news and blog accounts of the standing-room only event: Michael Foust (Baptist Press) Nancy H. McLaughlin (Greensboro News-Record) Tony W. Cartledge (Biblical Recorder) Lig Duncan (Reformation21) Thoughts & Adventures Blog Second, the SBC messengers elected a…
-
Ann Coulter Needs to Repent
I haven’t read the context of Ann Coulter’s remarks; her book won’t be released until tomorrow. So all I have seen so far are the excerpts in the Associated Press.According to the AP, Coulter’s new book has some pretty nasty things to say about a certain group of liberal-leaning 9-11 widows. The AP contains the following description of Coulter’s remarks: Coulter writes in a new book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,†that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands perished in the World Trade Center act “as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.â€She also wrote, “I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much†(source). Like…
-
Why the Gender Issue Is the Issue (part 2)
I want to follow-up on my earlier post about Mark Dever and his remarks about the gender issue in evangelicalism. Dever’s remarks were made on the “Together for the Gospel†(T4G) blog and were an attempt to answer criticism against T4G and its pro-complementarian stand.Now Ligon Duncan has followed up Dever’s post and has sought to offer even more context to the complementarian endorsement in T4G. Duncan’s remarks are in line with what I said about hermeneutics and the inerrancy and authority of scripture (see my original post and the interesting conversation that followed in the comments section). Duncan writes: The denial of complementarianism undermines the church’s practical embrace of…