Borg Blog: May in Review

Another wonderful month has passed in the life of the Borg Blog.  And in many ways, May is the best month of all, beginning and ending with the fact that this is the month my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary — six years and counting!

April showers bring May flowers — and also the Langborgh garden, this year bigger and (hopefully) better than ever.  This year’s planting includes several first time experiments — including one that has a plant growing upside down!  Read the details, and check out our nearly to scale plot design, in the post, “Our Little Garden of Eden”. 

As those familiar with our 6.5′x27′ garden will recognize, I managed to add at least 14 square feet of raised beds this year with some genuine help from our young children, Samuel and Maggie.  And in doing so, I learned all the more that as we work with an eye towards our vegetable harvests, the most important harvest will be reaped in the character of our children, as I explain in the post, “On Tending Our Gardens”.  In fact, there is a lot we can learn from our children, too, which is why I wrote, “Be Like Children / Don’t Be Like Children,” as a reminder to me and hopefully as a help to you, as well.

With springtime comes the rebirth of life.  Unfortunately, even at this vibrant time of year, death can intrude.  As I describe in “At Least They Weren’t Maggots…”, death hit close to home in May — right outside our back door in fact. 

Other family news in May featured my brother-in-law ringing in the New York Stock Exchange, my nephew Aidan receiving his first communion, and Maggie continuing and practically mastering her potty training like a big girl!

I have a knack for upsetting the feminists — but hey, they ruined our beer!  And because I linked Prohibition with the overzealousness of the early feminist movement, I was compelled to offer a disclaimer concerning the subject of women voting.  My conclusion: voting is overrated.  What is important is the Constitution. 

Of course, it is not just the feminists who are into trashing the Constitution to get their way. In recent years, Republicans have joined that circus with gusto.  So I offered an old Letter to the Editor of mine as one example of how we can work in our local communities to oppose big-government politicians from both parties, in my post, “Throw the Pork-Eating Bums Out!”

But the greater crime of the feminist movement is that of egalitarianism and the consequent undermining of God’s plan for the family and distortion of the picture that marriage is to present to the world about the truth of the Gospel.  Therefore, I offered my outline for a covenantal defense of biblical (as opposed to tyrannical pagan) patriarchy in the post: “The Fact of Spiritual Headship: Defending Biblical Patriarchy.”

But on what basis do we presume to teach on biblical subjects in the first place — and to write in such manner on our blogs?  Well, I explore this issue in great detail — and attempt to help correct the modern evangelical redefinition and abuse of the great Reformational doctrine of sola Scriptura - in my post, “Blogs & the Practical Application of Sola Scriptura: By What Authority Do You Teach?”  (Be sure also to see my post, “On Sola Scriptura, the Holy Trinity, & Ecclesiology”, and keep an eye on my Sola Scriptura category archive in the coming months.)

To back up to the subject of beer for a moment, not only is great beer a blessing from the Lord above, but beer has also been a great blessing to the English language, as I recount in my post, “Words that Begin with ‘Beer’”.

Too much beer, though, can make people erroneously think they have super powers.  And superheroes are always great fare at the movies, as seen with the release of X-Men III and the upcoming Superman film.  But did you know that, according to one very wealthy group, “You Too Can Be a Superhero!” with the right training and investment?  (Shhhhhh!!! — Just don’t let Tom Cruise know I told you.)

Anyway, all that and a lot more was featured at the Borg Blog in the month of May.  For the rest, just go to the May 2006 Archive. 

I hope you find this blog enjoyable, and perhaps even informative and helpful. Please feel free to drop me a line anytime, either in the comments section of this or another post or to my email address, and let me know what you think.

At Least They Weren’t Maggots…

Life provides all sorts of lessons about life and death.  For anyone paying even an once of attention, we are confronted with mortality each and every day.

Sometimes, the lessons are more stark than others.  With springtime, life springs anew and begins again afresh — from the sprouts in my vegetable garden to the baby animals offering their first cries to the world.  But the intrusion of death into this vibrant season can be especially jarring.

Such was the case at our house yesterday and today.  Read the rest of this entry »

‘What Does — & Doesn’t — it Mean to Partake of Christ’s Body & Blood in the Lord’s Supper?’

Lord’s Day Meditation

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Sola, Not Solo

Modern evangelicals, influenced as we have been by Enlightenment individualism, pietism, and sentimentalism, have largely abandoned the “five solas” of the Reformation.  But this has not all been from a slide into Arminianism and Semi-Pelagianism.  Rather, it has more often than not been done, quite ironically, in the name of the “five solas.” (I would even venture that Arminianism and the sectarian Calvinism of A.W. Pink-types are two manifestations of this same error.)

As Doug Wilson puts it in his excellent post, “Beyond the Five Solas”: 

“…in our day the meaning of the solas has been turned aside from their earlier and more glorious meaning. Now they are solo Christus (just me and Jesus), solo gratia (narrow, sectarian grace), solo fide (when I “prayed the prayer”), solo Scriptura (just me and my Bible), and solo Deo gloria (God gets all the glory for saving me, and maybe somebody else).”

“The need of the hour is to restore the five solas, and get them up out of the narrow crevice some folks have pushed them into.”  We do this, Wilson rightly states, by first reaffirming what the five solas meant in their original and glorious Reformational context:

“Salvation is by Christ alone (solus Christus), not by Christ and some kind of creaturely help. Salvation is by grace alone (sola gratia) and not some mixture of grace and merit, grace and works, grace and ungrace, or grace and brownie points. Salvation is received through faith alone (sola fide) and not some mixture of faith and works. We understand all this through ultimate reliance on Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) and not through some combination of the Word of God and the words of men. And all this comes together to glorify God alone for all that He has done (soli Deo gloria).”

“The solo tendency always tends to restrict the work of God to just a part or portion of reality.”  Instead, we need to get beyond the five solas and affirm the five totas, which culminate in “toti Deo gloria (all the glory for all things goes to God).”

For the rest, I urge all to read Wilson’s post.  It is an excellent reminder of what classical Protestantism was and what it can be again when God grants us repentance for the radical sectarianism and individualism we hold in our day.

In Celebration of Ascension Sunday

This coming Lord’s Day the church will (or, at least, should) celebrate Ascension Sunday — commemorating the bodily ascension of the resurrected Christ to the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, to be crowned with all glory and honor as the King of King and Lord of Lords.

Given the significance of this event, should we not celebrate this day with just as much joy and festivity as we do Christmas and Easter?  Dr. Peter Toon, an Anglican minister, certainly thinks so. For as he says, “unless the Lord Jesus is exalted into heaven, there is no salvation, redemption, and beatification for human sinners whom he came to save.”

I agree — especially after reading Toon’s excellent article, “The Great 40 Days”:

Previously the angelic hosts and choirs alone praised and magnified the Holy Trinity with their Holy, Holy, Holy, but now joined to them was the human voice of the exalted Priest, Son of Man and Mediator. And through, in, by, and with him came also from now onwards a constant procession of redeemed and sanctified human beings…  

For now, as belonging fully and uniquely to the Second Person of the Trinity, humanity was in heaven and the Lord Jesus, as the One Person made known in two natures (divine and human) became the One Mediator between God and man…

It is now the most holy sphere and place whose entry is through Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life and in this place there are many mansions for the multitude of redeemed human beings.

Hallelujah! And amen!

Teddy Bears, Books, Toys — and now, TVs? (sigh)

According to a study just released by the Kaiser Family Foundation:

• Nearly half of children aged 4 to 6 have a TV in their bedrooms.
• One in five aged 2 or younger have the same.

What, are teddy bears, books, and building blocks not good enough anymore? 

It is bad enough that 83 percent of children under the age of 6 watch two or more hours of television - every single day — and that a third live in homes where the boob tube is on constantly.  But TVs in their rooms?! 

As Brent Bozell writes,

“Regardless of what self-interested TV titans tell parents, there is no V-chip or any other artificial, technological solution to keep your children’s TV intake safe and reasonable. 

The solution is human, not technological. It’s parental engagement.”

Bonnie and I do not have a TV even in our own bedroom, much less our kids’ room.  And there won’t be when our children are teenagers, either.  We own one television, and with that we — and especially I — spend too much time as it is.  Our TV is in our living room, and I can’t wait until we get our basement finished in the next month so we can move the idiot box out of the main part of our home. 

Television and movies will always be part of our lives, but at most they should be very short interludes to a life filled with books, play, and human-to-human activity — you know, all that messy and fleshy stuff that requires interaction and activity, as opposed to passivity.

You Too Can Be A Superhero!

Just join Scientology today and invest several million dollars in this ultimate self-help cult, and you, like Tom Cruise, can obtain superpowers!  The X-Men and the Justice League have nothing on these guys!

Perhaps you can become like Matt Feshbach, who, in an earlier trial version — just a trial version, mind you! — of the Church of Scientology’s “Super Power” program, has obtained the ability to perceive reality from outside his physical senses. Don’t believe me?  Well, check it out for yourself — because Feshbach, now affectionately known by adoring fans as either “Fesh-man” or the incredible “Extra-sensor,” has already prevailed over the forces of darkness by saving one helpless lad from being mauled by the sinister “Pick-Up.”

But you better have cash like a Hollywood megastar to have any hope of obtaining such superhuman powers.  Alas, Tom Cruise, for all his clear zeal, devotion, and massive donations to the Church of Scientology has managed to only climb to the seventh of eight levels.

But it is most certainly worth the investment, because the whole goal of Scientologists is “to free themselves and new converts from secret alien control.”  Only in doing so can one achieve their maximum human potential, and even develop superpowers.  But standing in your way is Xenu, the evil space lord who invaded Earth 75 million years ago when the planets in his galaxy became overpopulated.  Xenu’s followers live on today — in possession of each of our souls!

Given the gravity of this invasion, one would think the leaders of Scientology would let all of us know — so that we could act in self-defense.  However, even new converts are sadly kept in the dark until they’ve invested lots of money and advanced to a given level. 

Thankfully, enough people have left Scientology who do know — and have thus been able to warn the rest of us about the menace of Lord Xenu.  This is why the creators of South Park were able to accurately portray this danger to a wider audience to a most grateful world. (You can see this important episode here in RealMedia, web streaming, or AVI format.) Finally, we can all obtain superhuman powers and defeat the minions of Lord Xenu.

Sad to say, but all of the above is no joke.  It is very much indeed what the leaders of the Chruch of Scientology believe, as World Magazine shows in their recent article, “Superpower Religion.” 

Given this fact, it’s no wonder Cruise and other Scientologists hate psychiatrists so much.

(For more information about Xenu and the Church of Scientology, click here.)

FounderBlogs.com

This is so cool I think I am going to explode with joy!

I just stumbled upon a super neat blog site called FounderBlogs.com. 

This site features a series of blogs regularly “posted” by the likes of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison. The theme and purpose of the site is straightforward: “What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions, Their Answers.”  In other words, WWFD?

I was naturally suspicious about how solid this multiblog site would be.  But those suspicions were put to rest when I discovered that the site’s author is none other than Richard Brookhiser, senior editor of National Review and the acclaimed author of the new book, What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions, Their Answers, as well as Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington;  Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President in War and Peace;  Alexander Hamilton, American;  America’s First Dynasty: The Adamses 1735-1918;  and Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, The Rake Who Wrote the Constitution.

It will come to no one’s surprise, then, that FounderBlogs.com now has a permanent place on my blogroll on the right hand side of this page.

Doug Phillips: ‘Honor as a Defining Principle for Life’

Doug Phillips has posted the outline for his remarks, “The First Command With a Promise,” which he delivered at the recent Highlands Study Center annual conference, “Generations: Giving Honor to Whom Honor is Due.”  He was among a panel of speakers that included his father, Howard Phillips, as well as R.C. Sproul and his son, R.C. Sproul, Jr.  The conference topic centered on the Fifth Commandment:

“Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” ~Deuteronomy 5:16

How I wish I had attended this conference.  For a variety of reasons, I did not.  Thankfully, Doug has posted a portion of what he taught there, showing how this commandment applies not just to individuals, but has generational and covenantal implications as well. Moreover, though the commandment certainly applies to the respect that children should give to their physical parents, it also applies to our responsibility to honor our employers, respect the elderly and the widowed, and to submit to and show due respect to our civil and ecclesiastical leaders — not to mention reverencing our Father in Heaven, hallowed be His name. How far I need to grow in all these areas!

Here are a few of my favorite portions of Doug’s outline:

On the transgenerational force of the Fifth Commandment:

“[T]he fifth commandment is not merely an individualistic promise, but a promise with generational and covenantal implications. Scriptures were exposited which detail both the blessings of honor, as well as the sanctions, judgments and cursings which God promises to dishonorable sons and daughters. Jesus promised that it would “be well” with honorable sons and daughters, and that there would be nothing but sorrows and heartaches for dishonorable sons and daughters.”

On honoring one’s employer:

“It is a safe maxim that if you disapprove of your employer or disagree with his decisions, you have two choices: You may stay with him and give him “all honor,” or you may leave his employment. What you may not do is to take his check but undermine him through grumblings and gossip.”

On hypocritical disdain for one’s parents:

“It is all too common these days to meet men who will look you in the eye and, in one breath speak about their profound concern for doctrinal truth, and in the other shamefully mock and expose the weaknesses of their godly fathers to the world in order to justify their personal rebellion in the spirit of Ham.”

On high-tech lynching of our church leaders’ character:

“In the past, dishonorable men would serve their families a dish of roast pastor at the Sunday brunch table (thus training their children to be embittered, ungrateful, whiners), but modern complainers are techno-savvy. Now dissatisfied congregants can dishonorably vent disagreements with their leaders to the world over the web. Some actually become internet assassins: men and women intent on destroying the character of the men with whom they disagree, and justifying their electronic holy jihad on the ground that ‘the world must be warned.’”

On the blessings promised to obedient sons and daughters in the faith:

“In contrast, honorable sons and daughters will prosper. They will enjoy blessing of days in the land which the Lord has given to them (Deuteronomy 5:16). They will have glad fathers (Proverbs 15:20). Unlike dishonorable sons who will have their lamp put out in obscure darkness (Proverbs 20:20), the path of sons who hear the instructions of their fathers will be illuminated (Proverbs 6:20-23). The law of their mothers will be an ornament of grace on their heads (Proverbs 1:7-9). They will be a joy to those in authority over them (Hebrews 13:17). It will be well with them (Ephesians 6:1-3).”

And a whole lot more.  Click the following link to read Doug Phillip’s full post, “Honor as a Defining Principle for Life.”

‘The Semi-Pelagian Narrower Catechism’

I heard about this from someone who heard about it from someone who heard about it from someone else. No word on where it originated, but it had me rolling on the floor laughing.  Here’s where I found it, but I also post it here for your convenience and enjoyment: Read the rest of this entry »