To begin, the Dove World Outreach Center has a website, but it is currently unavailable. This can only mean that the otherworldly-ness of the church is further made evident – in that they are otherwise occupied. Since this is a humorous study, we will proceed with information from the always reliable source, Wikipedia.

One need only look at the name of this organization to begin to see what they are obviously about. The first word “Dove” is a symbol of peace. But, in this era of postmodernism, descriptors are always deeper than they seem, and usually hidden behind layers of irony. So, one can confidently deduce that this is an ironic statement of the organization’s militancy. The following word “world” is obviously farcical in that the organization only has 50 members, all of which are local. Once again, irony is in play… “Outreach” is made up of two words the head noun being “reach”, and the modifying noun “out.” In the 1990′s there was a popular commercial by AT&T which used the phrase “reach out and touch someone,” which became a popular phrase on ESPN‘s SportCenter for describing big impacts in football or other sports. Obviously Jones is a master of cultural symbolism, as he has employed the nostalgic pop-culture meaning of this phrase to describe the mission of his organization. The last word, “center” brings to mind “center time” which is a way of learning in primary school. This is a tacit way of pointing out that the location in Florida serves as a training base.

The DWOC is supposedly made up of and led by Islamaphobes. Some people in the USA are scared that Islamic militants will disguise themselves as Christians, only to set things on fire (like Sept 11^th 2001). Interestingly, the DWOC has been seen placing signs which seem to be anti-Islam and wearing T-shirts which are anti-Islam. One can only wonder why this supposed Christian group is so bent on signs which talk about Islam. Are they a sleeper cell? Let’s go another layer deeper. They also pledged unwavering support for a controversial Baptist Church. That pledge seems almost transparent in crying out “look we are Christians!!”. So it appears that this organization may well fit the mold of an Islaamic Sleeper cell, based upon the name which appears to be a poorly hidden ironic statement of their purpose, and from their actions which are easily read as poor attempts to proclaim Islam while attempting to condemn it.

So in holding a “burn a Koran day” and a future “burn a Talmud day”, what are they hoping to accomplish? Are these people finally going to reveal their identity as a sleeper cell and set fire to something? I’m not so sure. An impartial outsider (required by the scientific method) focused on results could only conclude that the DWOC is attempting to unite people of all faiths. They have single handedly succeeded in bringing together Evangelicals, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews.

So it seems that the Dove World Outreach Center is a poorly run sleeper cell, which has only succeeded in uniting people of every faith against something.

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In our country you can burn the flag, burn books, burn bibles (strangely these were Christians who did it), etc. Yet, I’m not sure what sort of message that is supposed to send. If it is supposed to communicate “I hate ____” then wouldn’t it just be easier to verbally say it? I guess it is meant to desecrate the item in question. Still, I don’t see how that really goes beyond anything you could verbally say.

I think the guy is a little goofy, but he has the right to burn the Quran in the United States. What I don’t understand is why the media, and public leaders are making a big deal out of it. He’s going to do it either way. If the USA were to just offhandedly dismiss it as some goofball doing something crazy, to me that would send the same message of condemnation, but bring it less attention. If they are truly worried about the reaction of the Islamic world, then they should want to downplay the situation as much as possible, while still condemning it. So, I don’t understand all the public figures going on National (perhaps even international) TV to denounce this act. It seems to make the situation worse.

To me this situation seems no less outrageous than what happened in Austrailia in 2006, with Islamic students desecrating Bibles. While it is a political tragedy, I don’t see how it really communicates anything that wasn’t already public knowledge. There will always be people like Terry Jones who are looking for publicity, and if All the Kings Horses and Men go on TV denouncing it, then he gets his publicity.  Islam does not think the Bible is a real holy book, and Christianity doesn’t see the Koran as true. We all know that already, so what do these stunts prove? Nothing. As a Christian, I sure wouldn’t do what Terry Jones is going to do. I just don’t see the purpose in it, or how any good comes of it. But, he does have the right as an American to burn anything he wants, so long as he is not endangering people at the site of the fire (I sort of wonder if this will be enlarged to include soldiers? – I hope not that would open the door to government controlling people more).

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This work

The books value is in the early chapters’ argument that the OT canon was established by the 2nd century BC, and that the words were fixed in form by the end of the 1st century AD. He also argues that the NT was basically fixed by the end of the 2nd century AD, with some minor differences sorted out by the end of the 4th century AD. For a Conservative like myself I find value in these arguments, and conclusions. If you were looking for something that dealt with Christians and the environment (God’s creation) this is not for you.

FULL REVIEW HERE

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Cross is a respected scholar, with a very productive career. His writing should not be taken lightly, even when one disagrees with him. He does offer some good arguments for an early fixed text, and early decided canon of the Hebrew Bible, which even conservative evangelicals would probably appreciate.

Full Review here.

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Personally, I’m doing what I do everyday… I ran my 2 box-fans this morning to cool the house down to 69 degrees, so I don’t have to run the A/C today. In fact, I haven’t used the A/C at all this year. My goal is to make it at least until May 1st. Of course, if I can go longer, I will. The box fans supposedly use about 2cents worth of electricity per hour, each. I ran them for 2hrs, so that is about 8cents worth of power. Then, I have all the blinds open, so I don’t need lights on… I even keep my entertainment center’s power strip turned off when not in use because I hate phantom loads…

So that’s my story. If you want a great green-tech update on earth day, try this one on Cnet’s site.

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If Google has it’s way, there will be an app platform which will allow users to monitor their home’s energy use

The advantage to doing this for Google would likely be in storing the information for searches – or some other money making endeavor. The advantage to the public would be that you could (and gov’t officials will argue that you will be more likely to make) energy efficient choices at home. This would allow the infrastructure for electricity to service more customers without being upgraded, saving money for both power companies and governments. Additionally, less power consumption per person would allow the government to show progress toward meeting its stated goals of decreasing per capita energy usage and pollution.

It sounds like a win-win situation. As a Christian who cares about God’s creation (environment) I want to reduce pollution. But, sometimes rates go up in response to lower profits for energy companies. I’m reserving judgment on this idea until I have more information.

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Van Gogh Wheat Field

I ran across an interesting story about Young Evangelicals being more likely to link belief and action (specifically Environmentalism). The idea is that younger Evangelicals are more globally aware of problems, and are aware of cultural problems like consumerism. Since this is the case, they see their faith in Christ as having a component which drives them to be a part of the solution to these problems. An issue like global warming can garner a huge amount of support from faith-based groups of younger people in light of this reality. I just wish that younger Evangelicals (I still technically fall into this category of young, and I’m definitely Evangelical in my beliefs), would see an impetus in Scripture for engaging issues, instead of responding to a perceived crisis. I think crisis response is important, but since less planning tends to go into these efforts, the effects are more short lived. Taking the proactive, more thought through approach would yield longer lasting results and have more potential impact.

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His recent post about the discoveries in Thessaloniki is a great example of what he does. He includes a link to a press release, and a picture of what he is discussing. Mike includes a discussion of the discovery, and some comments about its significance. I like to check up on his site every few days to see what’s new in the area of archeology.

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These developments continue to break, and one can only delay judgment until more sound science comes forward. Even the people in charge of the IPCC have been under fire lately for problematic methods…

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This is a fun tag cloud generated based on my blog at wordle.com

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