Mark Byron

The Disgruntled Bapticostal-Part II-Alpha Groups and High Beta Churches

Jim left this interesting comment on the first post in this series-

Sounds a lot like balancing a portfolio or finding the right investment. Some have no risk [tight control of theology]but to you little return—the mainstream churches. Others appear to have the potential for great return but a rather large risk of being led astray.
Good luck in your search. Might be an interesting paper there in the balancing the risk/reward and the information available.

There are a number of analogies that come to mind. The portfolio thought plays to the finance professor in me, where your hypercharismatic churches would have high spiritual betas and non-charismatic churches (garden-variety evangelical) would have low betas with relation to the spiritual "market."

A quick finance-for-dummies; beta is a financial statistic out of the Capital Asset Pricing Model that measures sensitivity to the stock market. Stocks with high betas go for a roller-coaster ride; when the stock market is up, they're really up, but when the stock market gets a cold, they get pneumonia. Low beta stocks are less risky and have smoother returns but generally have a lower return.

Not all spiritual market changes are charismatic; even conventional evangelical churches can get sucked into the trend of the day, whether it be 40 Days of X or Willow Creek-style church growth models. Willow Creek has shifted focus from being seeker-friendly to discipling their believers; they've discerned that a more spiritual-mature flock will draw people into the building better than catering to the unchurched directly. That means that a lot of churches that were adopting the Willow Creek model were barking up the wrong tree in 20/20 hindsight.

However, the charismatic DNA has an especially-strong love of the novel, of the next new thing. A new and good change can help things. For instance, charismatics led the charge on modern worship music; it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it reaches people that have more of a feel for Crosby, Stills and Nash than Fanny Crosby.

Charismatic churches can be very transformative; they generally take people wherever they are and nurture them, pray with them and help show how drawing closer to God can allow the Holy Spirit to do things in us that we can't do on our own. When they're working right, they are providing a big impact in parishioner's lives, more so than a garden-variety evangelical church.

However, a new and bad change can screw things up. Chasing after God's new thing can get one into some things that are theologically dubious. The modern-day "prophets" like Rick Joyner or Mike Bickle can get people wired up over their next vision, but their next vision might be as much their own imagination as a message from God. Todd Bentley gets regular visits from his spokesangel Emma, but I'm fairly sure that some of the more outlandish visions are products of a wild imagination rather than actual impartations from God.

An effective revivalist can play to the desire for more, more of the Holy Spirit and get a self-fulfilling feedback loop; people come to them to expect to see people knocked to the floor and many people coming get wobbly by nature during a good service. The folks that get "slain in the spirit" are often either preconditioned to go down or bowing to peer pressure to take a fall rather than make the preacher look bad and they being the lone person who didn't feel that anointing; I got more than a bit of that feeling at Toronto when I went in 1997 and in Brownsville when I visited in 2002.

In such settings, the Spirit may not be moving much more (if at all) than in a regular service of a charismatic/Pentecostal church (an Assembly of God church is sponsoring the Bentley revival), but the people going to the service are looking for a good spiritual show (they'll state it in kinder terms than that, but there's an entertainment aspect to such revivals) and come expecting things to happen. Thus, the visiting preacher may not be much better than their normal preacher, but has a more vibrant style that gets people psyched up and looking for something special.

The problem with chasing the prophetic and the next big revival is that it take away from other spiritual endeavors, like reaching the lost or ministering to the needy. The money spent on hotel rooms and gas money/plane fares to get to Lakeland or Toronto could be spent on other church functions and the time could be spent on more fruitful activities. Also, if the activity takes away from the basic Gospel message, it can sap the spiritual growth of the parishioners; seeking after new gifts and new experiences may take away from what God may want them to do with what He's given them.

One of the things to ask about things like Lakeland is whether it's good for the church; even if the theology is OK (it's a notch or so out of my vision of orthodoxy), the activities can lead people towards a good spiritual show and away from fruitful things that they might be doing at home. Spending a Saturday helping at the local homeless shelter is less sexy than bopping down to Lakeland for the weekend, but it may be more helpful for the Kingdom of God.

Back to my Beta analogy: if charismatic churches are sensitive to the spiritual market and reflexively bite like a Doberman after the next new thing, they can underperform as a church if the next new thing isn't fruitful; when the market is down, they go down with it big time. Churches that are more traditional and less subject to the whims of the spiritual market aren't exposed to those changes and are less volatile; however, they might lack vibrancy and underperfom their charismatic peers.

However, there isn't any reason why churches can't independently figure out things that help expand the Kingdom of God; high betas are nice, but high alphas, where you outperform stocks with the same betas, are what we need to be striving for as a church, looking at what works for our church rather than having to adopt the latest trend.

The Disgruntled Bapticostal-Part I-Being Driven Away by a Bentley

Before moving to Lexington, I had soured some on charismatic churches. The independent charismatic church we had attended from 2005-2006 had turned perfectionist and somewhat word-of-faithy; we went to a good Free Methodist church for the first half of 2007 before we moved to Lexington last July.

I managed to find a good Southern Baptist church, Victory Baptist, just a quarter-mile from our apartment complex on the southeast side of Lexington; it takes us longer to get out of our apartment complex than it does to drive down Armstrong Mill to the church. It's a good, vibrant Baptist church, with good preaching, good worship music (albeit a bit too centered on the latest praise music to the detriment of more traditional contemporary stuff of the 80s, 90s and early 00s) and very solid Sunday School (a.k.a. "Life Group") classes.

However, while it's a good Baptist church, it's still a Baptist church. With my emotions, I find being prayed with to be helpful, and the Vineyard or Vineyard-style churches that we had predominately gone to for the last half-decade were good at prayerful counseling; "ministry time" would take the place of altar calls, where people would come up for prayer, even if it wasn't in response to the sermon's denouement. In the Baptist setting, neither the service or the Sunday School class had such an outlet beyond the standard prayer request at the beginning of your Sunday School class.

We also missed the fellowship of a good home group/small group; a good Sunday school class can do some of that, but it's time-limited and people scatter after the alloted hour; you don't have the extended time to hang out and get to know and be known. We were hoping for some more fellowship than what we were getting and gave the Vineyard church downtown (or at least towards the center of town compared to our outside-the-New-Circle-beltway location) a try last fall.

Here in Lexington, the local Vineyard church leans a bit too much into the Emergent/post-modern realm, with an extra emphasis on helping the poor and an almost Goth sanctuary with no windows, negligible lighting and leaf-less trees on the dais up front. We tried it last fall for a couple of services, but the mood seemed a bit too dark for our spirits; the preaching was interesting and dynamic, but the overall mood wasn't for us. Also, since they moved to a Sunday night alternative service (an alternative to Sunday morning rather than an addition to it), all their home groups that fit a mature married couple were on weeknights when I was teaching.

We cycled back to Victory, but the Vineyard bug, or a good home-group bug at least, didn't go away.

 A trip to visit Eileen's conservative PC-USA pastor friend in Missouri back in March lead us to give a nearby PCA church a try; they had good home groups, but the liturgical nature of their services left this low-church evangelical guy a bit cold. I lasted two weeks before I needed to move on.

It was speaking to Eileen's Presbyterian roots, but it was also hitting cords from my Methodist roots, where I was used to people mouthing creeds they didn't really mean. Even if the rather evangelical Presbyterians actually meant what they were saying, those old creeds and that liturgical, confessional style smelled of the "hypocrites" of my Methodist youth; my Methodist peers were worse-behaved than the other kids in school, which soured me on the brand.

I was still itching for something more than Victory, so we decided to try the Vineyard church in Wilmore, about 15 miles southwest of us; at first, things looked positive. The pastor wasn't in the Word-of-faith camp and seemed to be level-headed, but some of the parishioners were... a bit out there. One gal had a large prophetic streak, another was a big fan of Toronto and a third was starting to plug a revival in Lakeland that he had been watching via the Web.

The pastor mentioned that he liked the International House of Prayer, which raised a red flag, since IHOP boss Mike Bickle ran heard over a heterodox bunch of "prophets" in the 90s, but the pastor seemed otherwise level-headed. I forgave Pastor Dave Baker down at the Lakeland Vineyard for the occasional Rick Joyner reference, so I was willing to cut this pastor some slack.

We were down at WIlmore for four Sundays; the last Sunday, April 20, the topic of discussion was the Lakeland Revival; note that very few people outside of a few hard-core charismatic circles had heard of Todd Bentley yet, but these folks in Wilmore were wanting to make sure they were a part of whatever God was doing and were talking about making a trip down to Lakeland to check out this new move of the Lord.

I had been vaguely aware of Bentley, who hangs out with the circle that includes Toronto and a lot of the modern "prophets;" my dad, who appreciates a lot of that milieu, came back from a conference in British Columbia in 2001 taking about a real young guy named Todd Bentley with a powerful anointing. Now, he had gone global, and the folks in Wilmore were jumping on the band-wagon.

Eileen and I, after a lot of prayer, came to the conclusion that this church didn't have quite enough quality-control and was chasing after the next new thing a bit too much for comfort. Also, despite how much my dad likes them, I see self-styled prophets like Joyner and Bickle as loose cannons, focusing more on their own imaginations than the Gospel, and I'm uncomfortable fellowshipping with a lot of prophetphiles. They're more likely to be leading folks off on wild-goose-chases than leading them into a deeper walk with God and a better witness.

Dan Edelen has a good comment on this-

We must also realize that a group with odd theology may continue to spawn odd theology even if they attempt to distance themselves from the past error. In charismatic circles, far too much deviant doctrine and practice has come out of the Kansas City Prophets of the late 1980s and early 1990s. One can trace all manner of craziness since 1990 directly back to that group, including the recent Lakeland “revival.” Anything “birthed” out of that movement should have an automatic red flag attached to it, as should any former leaders connected to it. This includes organizations and ministries such as IHOP, The Elijah List, MorningStar Ministries, Passion & Fire, and a whole host of others that looked favorably upon Mike Bickle, Bob Jones, John Paul Jackson, Rick Joyner, Paul Cain, and anyone else who came out of the Kansas City Prophets movement. In fact, since the entirety of the modern prophetic movement in charismatic circles is inextricably linked in a tangle to those groups and individuals, it may be best (and I say this with a heavy heart) to avoid the prophetic movement altogether as a national entity until God purges the corrupted seed.

Edelen is a fellow charismatic, so he isn't your stereotypical heresy-hunter who's looking to bash anything that isn't outside their comfort zone. It's hard to set up a KC-free zone, since you wind up writing off a big chunk of charismatic thought; when you couple that with writing off the Word-of-Faith crowd (TBN, Osteen, Meyer, White, et. al.), you pretty much write off most of the "Spirit-filled" universe.

Toronto goes. Lakeland goes; both Bentley and my old Vineyard church, where Joyner and Jackson were in the reading mix. Even my Vineyard church in Midland goes, with their Harp-and-Bowl worship sessions inspired by IHOP.

Increasingly, the lack of theological quality control in charismatic circles makes it hard to be in that environment. As much as the freedom of worship and focus on prayer ministry makes charismatic churches attractive, the loose cannon nature of things makes problematic.

One of our good friends from our old Vineyard church in Midland has gone PCA; for us, a good Baptist church works for us.

More on this later.

Edifier du Jour: Galatians 3:1-5(NIV)

¹You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ²I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? ³Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ⁴Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? ⁵Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

You can't work your way to faith and can't work your way to a larger dose of the Holy Spirit.

One of the problems with many modern Christians is that they either have to work at a list of dos and don'ts of proper living or that they are so wound up in improving their faith that "faith" becomes works. If miracles aren't happening in their lives, they must not have enough faith, or so the Word-of-Faith meme tends to run; people then try to work on their faith in various ways, developing a "By faith" regime that is very work-oriented, focused on reading the right books, listening to the right CDs and praying the right prayers.

Faith is a gift. The "gifts of the Spirit" are gifts, not frequent-prayer rewards that kick in after 5,000 prayers. Some people have them, some don't, and the folks that don't aren't second-class believers.

Lakeland Airport Christian Fellowship?

Here's my lede on my first Todd Bentley post

If you're not a Lakeland, Florida person, you might not get the pun in the title. One of Lakeland's big tourism draws (other than Detroit Tiger spring training) is the Sun-'n-Fun Fly-In, where recreational aviators from around the country show up for a week of flying-related events at the airport south of town.

Lakeland might be on the verge of having another tourist destination, and it won't involve a theme park; a big revival has broken out at Ignited Church on the north side of town, with rising Pentecostal evangelist Todd Bentley (my dad's been taking about him for years after seeing him at a conference about six years ago) being the touchstone of some interesting rashes of conversions and reported healings.

The thing is still going, and my description was prophetic (figuratively) on two grounds; the first is that it has become a burgeoning pilgrimage site for charismatics. That I figured would happen, but not as fast as it did. Cary McMullen from the Lakeland Ledger has an excellent update, covering quite a bit of historical ground on the Third-Wave charismatics and other issues that I covered in my first post, including Rodney Howard Brown's Carpenter's Home revival of the 90s.

The second is that they're setting up shop at the Lakeland airport.

Revival leaders are expected to announce today that beginning May 26, they will hold evening services on the grounds of Sun 'n Fun Fly-in under a giant inflatable "air dome" that will hold up to 10,000 people. It will be the home of the revival "indefinitely," said Lynne Breidenbach, a spokeswoman for the revival.

"Todd is hiring staff and renting apartments. They're setting up camp to stay for three or four months," [host pastor Stephen] Strader said.

Lakeland's airport is non-commercial, so pilgrims have to fly into either Tampa or Orlando. However, it is a bit ironic that they'll be set up for now at the airport, since the host church of the Toronto Blessing was the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship; they had to buy a failed conference center in an industrial park near the airport to hold the crowds they were getting a decade ago.

It looks like they are starting to institutionalize things much like Toronto, having a smaller service in the mornings at the host Ignited Church and a big evening service out at the airport.

However, I'd still feel more at home a couple miles to the east along Pipkin Road at the Lakeland Vineyard, my old church in my Florida days. For folks going to the revival and looking for a break from the high-octane stuff, check them out, although they may be a bit tame by Bentley standards, being founded by a Southern Baptist pastor who got too charismatic for the Baptists a couple of decades back.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Edifier du Jour-Philippians 3:17-21(NIV)

¹⁷Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. ¹⁸For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. ²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

That's the passage that Pastor David used this morning after starting things with a Memorial Day message, including a video of honoring fallen soldiers with Taps playing. There is a strong tendency to play the God-and-country card a bit too heavy on holidays like this, but this passage makes sure to keep it in proper perspective.

Our primary citizenship is in heaven witb God; we're merely naturalized citizens down here on Earth.


 Bene (via Bill Moyers) makes fun of Rod Parsley being "a 'Christo-crat' —a gladiator for God marching against 'the very hordes of hell in our society.'” I'm not a fan of Parsley's theocon-on-steroids shtick, but there is a strong element that we need to stand up for God first and foremost and be citizens of our country second. How tactfully we do it and how it manifests itself will vary from person to person and from country to country, but our primary allegiance needs to be to God, not a red-white-and-blue flag or whatever flag you're being offered where your at..

Taboo-boos

Here's an interesting conversation starter from Josh Claybourn, who lifted the meme from Anne Jackson: "What is something you feel you can't say in church, or around other Christians?"

For me, it depends on what church I'm in.

At a Southern Baptist church

(1) You realize that the Baptist Faith and Message doesn't say anything against Pentecostal-style stuff.
(2) I'm not all that sure about young-earth creation; I'm sure about Who did the creating, but not about how and how long.
(2a) I'm not all that hot on the Creation Museum as a pilgrimage site or going to see Expelled as a must-do movie
(3) If you don't have a really evangelistic sermon, don't go overboard doing a salvation altar call.
(4) Lifeway's praise music selection stinks
(5) Just because it's playing on K-LOVE doesn't mean it works as a worship song.
(6) Beth Moore's overrated. She's good, but not to the point that every other study is one of hers.
(7) If we spent as much helping the poor as we did on Lifeway Sunday School materials, we'd be moving in the right direction
(8) The Holy Spirit is more than a bit player in the Trinity

At a charismatic church

(1) Tongues is overrated.
(1A) I don't think a lot of "Prayer languages" are languages. It doesn't make praying in the Spirit invalid, but it might not be a language.
(2) In-service prophecies, especially if they merely reiterate Biblical truths, are overrated.
(3) I've been fighting off depression for years, and prayer hasn't help as much as advertised
(4) Todd Bentley is a loose cannon, and most of the people on TBN aren't much better.
(5) The people who go to conference to conference looking for the next batch of manifestations need to get a life
(6) God isn't an ATM machine and the folks on TBN don't have the PIN number
(7) Not everything you think is a vision is from God; sometimes, it's last night's burrito.
(8) The spiritual quality control in Pentecostal circles is sorely lacking.
(9) New doesn't equal good

At any evangelical church

(1) Telling people how I actually feel. When I get "Howya doing?" I have to remember that most people really don't want to know.
(2) Telling the teens or young adults that their beer or rock T-shirts don't quite cut it as a good witness
(3) The "holy hardware" T-shirts aren't much better; they're merely a Christian nod to pop culture
(4) God isn't a card-carrying Republican.
(5) Life will go on even if a judge or state legislature does something morally dense.

How's that for starters?

McCain-Jindal?

One of the interesting news items of the day has John McCain inviting an interesting who's who out to his "retreat" in Sedona for the weekend; the list includes former nomination rival Mitt Romney, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, all of which are touted as possible running mates.

Three things are wrong with that paragraph;

(1) Sedona is very pretty but hopelessly New-Agey. We visited there a couple of years ago when we were out to see in-laws in Glendale. That's not a way to win over your right flank, Senator.

(2) Charlie Crist isn't the way to do it, either. Florida's going to be in McCain's camp; if he needs help winning Florida, he's close to toast. Crist is a law-and-order moderate not too unlike Rudy, except he just had one marriage many moons ago. I don't see Crist winning over swing voters or keeping conservatives from staying home or voting for a right-wing protest candidate and a single VP running mate has no wife to send out as a surrogate.

(3) Mitt Romney isn't the answer. He may make economic conservatives happy, but he's not going to get too many swing voters to vote for the ticket; his Bain Capital wealth make him easy to pick on as a typical rich Republican fat cat. Also, you have the Mormon issue that could scare both secular-leaning and orthodox folks for different reasons.

Of the guys being mentioned, Jindal makes the most sense. He's young, which you'll need to balance the septuagenarian McCain. He's a governor, which gives him executive experience (albeit only a few months worth, since he just got elected last year) to McCain's DC-centric portfolio. He's Catholic, which will smooth over a key swing vote and put the John Hagee=Jeremiah Wright meme to bed once and for all. He's a person of color (the son of Indian immigrants), which will blunt the Obama immigrant's-son feel-good story.

To top it off, he's one of the smarter guys to get into politics in a while. He'd make a good president in 2012 or 2016 and would be in position to be McCain's heir apparent if he makes it to the Naval Observatory digs next winter.

What are the down-sides? The good-ol'-boys who might vote for McCain to avoid voting for "the guy with the Arab-sounding name" might not warm to having a guy with a given name of Piyush; that redneck factor helped get Kathleen Blanco elected governor in 2003. That proved to be a blessing in disguise for Jindal, for he didn't get stuck cleaning up after Katrina, which would have taxed his considerable brain-power. Instead, he served a term and a half in Congress while Blanco underperformed during the crisis.

However, if you're going to have a guy of Hindu heritage run, the time to do it is when you have a guy of Muslim heritage (not much of one in reality, but the meme doesn't want to go away) running at the same time. The good-ol'-boys will be uncomfortable with both, but they'll likely be more uncomfortable with the Muslim guy than the Indian guy.

Jindal's less of a loose cannon than Huckabee, has a better handle on health care issues and as would be a good match for McCain.

Edifier du Jour:1 Corinthians 10:23-24(NIV)

²³"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. ²⁴Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

This is a classic verse of discipleship that came to mind when reading about Charles Barkley's pledge to stop gambling, after belatedly settling a $400K tab he rang up with a Las Vegas casino.

"I have no, no money problems whatsoever. Nobody's coming after me for money," he said. "I screwed up and didn't pay them. Could they have handled it differently? Yes. But it was my fault."

Barkley has talked openly about his gambling, estimating during a May 2006 interview with ESPN that he'd gambled away about $10 million over the years. He always defended it by saying he had the money to lose, but said Monday it was time for a break. He added he would try to do it on his own without seeking help.

"Just because I can afford to lose money doesn't mean I should do it," he said.

Check that last line. That's one that we call can think about in our creature-comfort milieu; just because I can afford to do X doesn't mean I should.  Just because we can do X doesn't me we should.

Sir Charles has fought being a role model for decades, but he may have become one for a change. He could use some council, but he's stumbled uncontrollably into the truth on this one.

You and I aren't going to blow six figures in Vegas (at least I hope you aren't). We may very well blow two figures on a nice dinner out or blow a few dollars on a cup of your favorite Starbucks creation. The scale's a bit lower, but a bit closer to home.

We had a clothing give-a-way at church last weekend, where church members brought in clothing and other left-overs to give to the needy in the area. Bedding was in short supply, and our Sunday School leader noted that he grieved over not have more sheets and blankets to give away.

It wouldn't have taken too much money to purchase some surplus "white goods" from a department store chain and donate them to folks. If the 300 or so people who call Victory Baptist home gave up $3 that week, we could have $900 to buy stuff; buying in bulk, that could go a long way to meeting those needs; just a latte or two could buy a blanket to keep folks warm for a lot longer than that cup of joe will.

This story has a bit of a bigger price tag, but there's more than a bit of irony, since it involves Barkley TV ad phone pal Dwayne Wade and what he did for his mom-

Before she was known as the mother of the Miami Heat superstar and 2006 NBA finals MVP, Jolinda Wade was known as an inmate, a fugitive, a drug user and drug seller. Her life turned around seven years ago when, after years of urging by her children, she got help and got clean. Along the way, she devoted her life to spreading the word of God, starting her first ministry while doing time in state prison.

Now, that ministry has a new home -- the Temple of Praise. Jolinda Wade's very own church in Chicago.

Her son bought it, and her children and her congregation gathered to dedicate it Sunday.

We can't afford to buy a church, but most of us can afford to do more than we are doing to help the Kingdom of God along. That's the pot calling the kettle black; that finger pointed at the crowd means that three more are pointing back at me.

Mr. Ma

No, that's not a paean to Lileks, it's a reference to the new Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou. It's interesting in that Ma was the candidate of the KMT party, the old nationalist party of Chiang Kai-shek, who ran the country after fleeing the mainland in the 1940s. It wasn't until 2000 that someone from outside the KMT was allowed to run the country.

Thus, Ma represents a revamped KMT that doesn't have to do tricks like have mainland congressman be essentially elected to life terms since their seats were in rebel-held (a.k.a. PRC) territory and new elections were impossible. This would be somewhat akin to the PRI regaining power in Mexico after stacking the deck in their favor for decades, then being honest and ceding power to the opposition.

The key difference would seem to be that Ma still clings to a one-China policy of eventual reunification with the mainland, while outgoing president Chen Shui-bian was looking towards an independent Taiwan. Ma will be less likely to do stuff to anger Beijing.

Breaking Away II Would Be Interesting

"Spielberg eyes more Indiana films."

We could also see Another Season on the Brink or Hoosiers II: No Country for Old Point Guards or There Will Be Blood II: The I-69 Route War .

The Secondary Primary

Kentucky has its primary tomorrow, and I've got a limited amount of choices to worry about. It's a closed primary and I'm registered as a Republican (you have to choose sides if you want a say, and that's the side that I'm the closest to), so I'm out of the loop for either the Hillary-Obama presidential primary or an interesting Senate primary between Bruce Lundsford and Greg Fischer.

It's been an active campaign. Saturday afternoon, we had a flock of people (a dozen or so) with Hillary signs standing on Nicholasville in front of Fayette Mall. Somebody was busy putting Fischer signs out on Man O' War on Sunday and came back today (or late Sunday) and put a slew of Hillary signs out in the same spots. We have a Obama campaign office in Lexington in a strip mall near Fayette Mall and quite a few Obama stickers are applied to cars in the Sullivan parking lot.

Not too many McCain stickers, and I'm not sure if it's because the primary race is over on the GOP side or that people aren't excited about McCain. Probably a combination of both, mostly the latter; the activists in the party aren't thrilled about him, and if they are excited, it's a negative one, one where the yahoos on the right dis his immigration stances by christening him Juan McCain.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, is up for reelection and has token opposition from paleocon Daniel Essek. How paleocon? Well, he claims an endorsement from the state Constitution Party, but the link to the Connies has been domain-swiped.

McConnell isn't quite my cup of tea, a bit too much from the Chamber of Commerce wing of the party for my taste, but he beats the heck out of a backwater Pat Buchanan; he's from so far south in Kentucky, his campaign P.O. box is in Tennessee (it might be easier to go to Jellico, which is just inside the TN line, exit 160 on I-75 from my many sojourns to and from FL, than Williamsburg from where he's at). McConnell'll get my vote tomorrow.

My main quandary, other than bothering to vote at all (since the polling place is the rec center of our apartment complex and I have to drive past it, there's no good excuse not to), is for whom to vote for on the Presidential side of things. I supported Mike Huckabee during the early primary season, but I'm torn between giving a tip of the hat to the prospective nominee and sending a message with a Huckabee vote; yes, Ron Paul is on the ballot, but that's a message I don't want to send, thank you very much.

Send a message of support or send a message of theocon defiance? Other than on global warming, McCain seems to be hitting most of the right cords on policy and I don't have a huge problem with him; he was my second choice in the primary season and probably a better nominee than a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time shoot-from-the-lip Huckabee.

I'm thinking McCain. I don't want to give Bill Schneider or Michael Barone talking points that X% of Kentuckians are dissatisfied with McCain. I'd have preferred Huckabee, but I am satisfied with McCain, and think I should state that with my vote.

Huckabee fans, try to talk me out of it.

Edifier du Jour-Galatians 1:6-9(NIV)

⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! ⁹As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

Todd Bentley came to mind as I was reading this passage today; it you've missed the last few weeks of writing, he's the new superstar of the Pentecostal circuit, being the keynote preacher of a well-attended revival meeting series in Lakeland, FL. His theology is a bit out there even for charismatics, claiming regular visitations from angles.

A common put-down around these days in evangelical circles is "Jesus plus...", where the Gospel is burdened with extra unneeded requirements (legalisms, undue separatism, et. al.) or errant theology. Bentley's ubiquitous visions and over-emphasis on healings and other manifestations would seem to qualify as a such a problematic addition, although the "Holy Spirit junkies" who Google in here might beg to differ.

Even if something looking supernatural is delivering a message, we still have to ask whether it is of God, of the Devil or of our own imagination; I have a feeling that a lot of Bentley's visions would fall into that third bucket of a wild imagination.

However, one thing that I'm fearful of is that we get so afraid of going "Jesus plus" that we create "Jesus minus." People can be so fearful of over-the-top manifestations of the Holy Spirit that they'll leave a lot of the power of the Gospel that flows from that under-appreciated member of the Trinity unused. Another "Jesus minus" can be an antinomian attitude that can result from a fear of legalism, where we avoid discipline and create an anything-goes mentality.

We're supposed to present and preach the Gospel and avoid adding or subtracting to the core message. We may have flourishes that appeal to cultural or stylistic differences, but the core message needs to be straight-forward idea that God loved us enough to send his son to die for us and rise again, and that those who accept his Son as Lord and Savior have eternal life.

Digesting the 21st Century-Part I-Political Indigestion

There's an unsettled spirit in the air these days, where the way forward looks a bit unclear and a bit dicey. The economy is going forward on a macro basis, but the micro looks touchy. Politics is at a narrow, trench-warfare level, with the real possibility of another president who wins the Electoral College but not the popular vote. Geopolitics is uneasy as well and theology is digesting a lot of things at once as well.

The concept that came to mind at dinner this evening is that we're digesting the new millennium and the rules of the road that come with it; it's post-industrial, post-Cold War and hanging between post-modern and post-post-modern. No Post Raisin Bran; I go with the store brand.

Geopolitics and global economics is settling into a period of high commodity prices driven by high oil prices and a relatively weak US dollar; there's too much new demand for oil and too many problems on the supply front (Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria et al) to see prices come down too much any time soon. We're seeing car companies giving a $2.99/gallon price guarantee if you buy a new car, and that's a bargain; not that long ago, it would bring sticker shock. Somehow (probably due to better logistics and inventory controls than a generation ago), we've managed to take such sky-high prices without seeing the stagflation of a similar jump in the last 70s; the economy has narrowly avoided a recession (knock on wood), inflation has been manageable and unemployment hasn't skyrocketed.

Still, when you're shelling out $40 for a fill-up when you were used to $20, it's going to put a crimp in your disposable income, and people are feeling that. They is a sense of unease in politics, where the status quo doesn't seem right, but people aren't sure about what kind of change to believe in.

Sen. McCain is a bit behind in national polls, but when you break things down on a state-by-state basis, he's leading Obama in Ohio, especially when you look at likely voters, and in a dead heat with Obama in Michigan and Wisconsin. There are some blue states that Obama is doing well in, like Colorado, but McCain looks to be on a fairly clear path to keeping all of the other Bush 2000 states.

If we use the Rasmussen breakdown and grant McCain wins in Florida, Missouri and Virginia, he only has to win Ohio among the swing states to get to 270. For Obama to win, he has to win Ohio and keep McCain from winning any other Great Lakes state (Michigan, Wisconsin) that along with New Hampshire or Nevada can push McCain over 270 as well.

Obama has to fight off ethnocentrism in order to win. It's interesting that we're on the verge of seeing the first black major-party nominee, but it may be his Islamic pedigree that does him in, not his race. The smooth, intelligent and multi-ethnic package that made him appealing to the intelligentsia doesn't quite sit well with blue-collar voters who bring a bit of xenophobia to the table, especially with stuff that's Arab-sounding. You can tell them that he's a Christian and that his nominally-Muslim dad was both an atheist and not in the loop, but a few swing voters will pass on Obama because of that otherness.

Quite a few others may pass on him because he's a bit too liberal, especially when a fairly moderate alternative is running against him. They'd rather have change they can be comfortable with, and McCain's job is to provide that comfort. Uncle John versus Cousin Barry.

It'll be interesting to watch.

Edifier du Jour:Psalm 109:4-13(NIV)

⁴ In return for my friendship they accuse me,
       but I am a man of prayer.
⁵ They repay me evil for good,
       and hatred for my friendship.
⁶ Appoint an evil man to oppose him;
       let an accuser stand at his right hand.
⁷ When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
       and may his prayers condemn him.
⁸ May his days be few;
       may another take his place of leadership.
⁹ May his children be fatherless
       and his wife a widow.
¹⁰ May his children be wandering beggars;
       may they be driven from their ruined homes.
¹¹ May a creditor seize all he has;
       may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
¹² May no one extend kindness to him
       or take pity on his fatherless children.
¹³ May his descendants be cut off,
       their names blotted out from the next generation.

...and may a herd of camels have diarrhea on his front lawn. He doesn't like the guy, does he?

That's David, Mr. Man after God's Own Heart, condemning otherwise innocent children. He might have Ruth as his grandma, but he himself is ruthless here.

Does David the Bad Example go beyond Bathsheba? Yesterday, I was looking at David's multiple wives as a character short-coming, and we see what seems to be another short-coming here, at least from a New Testament, pray-for-your-enemies vantage point.

Are we supposed to pray for God to deliver a triple-whammy on our foes and their kids? That's not the God I've grown up with. That's not to say that God doesn't punish wrongdoing, but it seems out of place to ask for it to be applied to others.

 

Kentucky Musings

One of the other industries around here is bourbon; a puff piece on Buffalo Trace's six millionth barrel of hooch was in the paper, which included this interesting paragraph-

Buffalo Trace put up its 5-millionth barrel way back in 1981. That reflects the industry's slowdown years ago and its recent resurgence, Traver said. For comparison, in 2005 Jim Beam sealed its 10-millionth barrel. Heaven Hill Distilleries filled its 5-millionth barrel in 2006.

We have the dinner and keynote address for our Sullivan University retreat at Buffalo Trace's distillery in  Frankfort last fall, but never heard of the place before moving down here. I'm far from a boozer, but Jim Beam is one I easily recognize. Somehow, the Buffalo Trace folks have put out roughly half as much booze as JB and managed to fly under my radar.

__________

Speaking of Frankfort, I've been reasonably impressed with Gov. Beshear. Not enough to vote for him for reelection in 2011 (barring a real stinker of a Republican) but enough to feel comfortable with things. He promised not to raise taxes and didn't; he did try to get a cigarette tax increase through, but a Republican state senate shot it down. He tried to get casinos through, but the legislature couldn't agree upon a format.

In the end, he held the line and signed a rather austere budget. The local left-leaning fish wrap, a.k.a. the Herald-Leader, had piece after piece decrying what the budget would do to various state services, especially UK, but without a consensus on how to raise taxes, they wound up cutting spending.

That lack of smoothness has gotten Beshear a modest 39% approval rating; so much for a honeymoon.

Democratic respondents in the poll appeared most satisfied with the start to Beshear's term, with 54 percent giving the thumbs up. On the other hand, 70 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of independents surveyed reported being displeased.

There are probably a lot of Democrats who'd want Beshear to be more liberal and a lot of Republicans who'd want him to be less so; almost an inverse of President Bush's problem. So far, Uncle Steve's better than the Aunt Jennifer I left behind; that's a pretty low bar, I know.

________________

We have a primary coming up Tuesday. All the action is on the Democratic side, as Hillary looks to make her last stand here and a pair of millionaire businessmen, Bruce Lunsford and Greg Fisher, square off for the Democratic Senate nomination and to try and unseat Mitch McConnell. However, the campaign has deteriorated into each pointing out when the other has been (gasp!) donating to Republicans in the past.

Campaign finance records show Lunsford has given more than $60,000 to Republican candidates.

Lunsford and Fischer, both wealthy Louisville businessmen, debated their personal campaign contributions during the appearance before the Louisville Forum, a non-partisan public issues group.

After Wednesday's hourlong debate, Fischer said Lunsford has a habit of misspeaking. He noted that Lunsford apologized on the KET debate for supporting Fletcher in 2003.

Lunsford has acknowledged that his support for Fletcher was a mistake. He also has said he has given to Republican campaigns to protect his companies, and has contributed more than $120,000 to Democratic candidates.

Check out that passage I italicized. He admits to playing donation-for-access politics, donating to folks he doesn't like to have influence over them. That's an easy guy to run against in the fall, one who will struggle to make the culture-of-corruption card stick on Mitch.

The Neville Brothers?

The President unleashed an interesting can of worms, blasting a generic group of peaceniks in a speech to the Knesset-

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

A year before that, Neville Chamberlain became the poster-boy for appeasement, going to Munich and signing off on a deal to give the ethnically-German northwestern Czech area of the Sudetenland over to Germany, proclaiming "peace for our time." The Germans, now in custody of the high terrain military barrier between the two countries, then proceeded to grab the rest of Czechoslovakia in a pre-season WWII game.

Was Dubya calling out particular Democrats as a new version of the Neville Brothers? Maybe, maybe not, but quite a few of them got hot under the collar. Nancy Pelosi was steamed and Joe Biden even let loose with an unabbreviated BS in his rebuttal of the president remarks. In addition, "Obama swiftly criticized Bush for a 'false political attack' and said the president’s foreign policy has failed to secure the U.S. or Israel."

Well, if it's a false political attack, there isn't much to be worried about; the truth will carry the day. However, Democrats are afraid that they might resemble the unspecified peaceniks in Bush's speech-"Mitt Romney said that he is reminded of the saying that the dog that barks on the other side of the fence is the one that was hit by the rock."

With Iraq being a long, but improving, slog, the Chamberlain school of using diplomacy and granting concessions to rivals may look good to quite a few people; Winston Churchill is a hero today, but he had his bad days, including getting the blame for Gallipoli, a botched amphibious invasion of Turkey in WWI while he was head of the British navy.

Right now, being a Churchill isn't popular, especially in certain elite circles; Iraq might be seen as the neocon's Gallipoli. However, Churchill managed to get back into power during WWII when his character traits were more in demand.

Bush isn't up for reelection, but John McCain shares a lot of that Churchillian resolve to do the right thing.  McCain knows a bit about being in the political wilderness and coming back; he might wind up making a virtue of that John Bulldog motif and get elected if people think that they'd rather have a bulldog than a Dalmatian running the show.

Edifier du Jour: 2 Samuel 3:1-5(NIV)

1 The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.

2 Sons were born to David in Hebron:
       His firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel;

3 his second, Kileab the son of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel;
       the third, Absalom the son of Maacah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur;

4 the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith;
       the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital;

5 and the sixth, Ithream the son of David's wife Eglah.
       These were born to David in Hebron.

We normally associate Solomon as the multi-wife guy, but David's doing a good job of looking like a old-school Mormon role model here. Six sons, six wives, not counting Michal (Saul's daughter) and well before Bathsheba (she shows up in chapter 11).

Can you say "Palace politics", boys and girls? I thought you could.

Abigail is mentioned earlier as a good example of hospitality, but Maacah sounds like trouble even when she doesn't remind you of George Allen; she's the daughter of a foreign king, one who might not be the best God-fearing lady. Even if you didn't know that Absalom would grow up to lead a rebellion against his dad, his pedigree would lead you to think that he'd be the one to keep a very close eye on.

 

God's Two Minute Drill?

I'm still wrapping my mind around Todd Bentley. I haven't watched any footage of the revival as of yet, but I got a snippet of his preaching in this YouTube of Bentley at Toronto via Phoenix Preacher.

He reminds me a bit of Mike Warnke, the Christian comedian/preacher of the 1980s, whose backstory of Satanism and drug-dealing proved to be fabricated. I'm not suggesting that Bentley's checkered pre-conversion past is made up, but his exuberant preaching style reminds me of Warnke, who was a hot commodity on the CCM circuit in the 80s before his keister got fact checked. Such colorful histories make for great "testimonies."

What concerns me about Bentley is his view of God, which seems a notch away from mine.

In the YouTube piece at about the 4:30 mark, he talks about a vision where he's snatched up out of a church service he's attending; "I'm in heaven on an operating table and ... I think I'm in an autopsy room or something." He gets tied down to the table by four angels, sawed him open with a miter saw, gutted him, and start taking small white boxes and stuff Bentley like a turkey; here's my stab at a transcript-

...and I heard the verse "I desire truth in the inward parts."
I said "God, what's happening here?" and He said

"Todd, this is something that I'm doing in the church today. It's an acceleration. I'm supernaturally imparting the character, the revelation and the knowledge that I need the church to have so that they can do the work that I need them to do, because the laborers are few."

He said "I don't have the 30, 40 years to prepare a vessel.  Moses, 40 years, 80, years, I don't have that; I'm doing something quick. There's going to be people who get saved and I'm going to open them up and supernaturally place inside of them ten years of knowledge and wisdom and even character because of the fruits of the Spirit. These boxes represent character attributes."

Can that happen? Yes; I'm not one to put God in a box.

Is that happening? I think not. I don't think that God has to run a two-minute drill in order to equip His people. God is beyond time and knows what He'll need down the line.

It's long been a shtick among preachers, especially those of a premillennial take on things, to focus on now being the time; you can't tell when Jesus is coming back, and he's coming back soon, so we need to save all the people we can before they all get left behind when the Rapture comes. Pentecostal premillennialists will add the idea that signs and wonders will kick up a notch when the end is near, and the end must be near if all that stuff is happening.

However, this seems to be going beyond that and portraying a God who's having to run a no-huddle offense. That seems to run counter to the classic concepts of God as omniscient and omnipotent; He can act in a hurry, but shouldn't need to act in a hurry.

Later on in the tape, Bentley talks about a major manifestation of the Spirit at his hotel room after the conference and notes that things were so intense, the room above his caught fire. God's not a god of collateral damage; He or His angels can work at point X without harming point Y next door or above it.

I can live with people getting "slain in the spirit" and getting healed miraculously; it happened in the Bible and has been know to happen from time to time today. A lot of people will train their fire at such Pentecostal stuff, but I don't think that's the problem with Bentley in the long haul.

What I see as wrong with Bentley is that he pictures a God that's a loose cannon. Yes, like the line about Aslan, God isn't safe, but He's good, but the God I've grown to know has that cannon firing with laser-beam precision. He doesn't need no steenking spotters to direct fire.

Bentley's version of God is running late, creates collateral damage and has to make up for lost time. It looks a lot like the god of Open Theism, where their deity has an unclear view of the future and may have to call an audible now and them when things don't go by plan. It may well be that some of his visions are more internally inspired than divinely inspired; Bentley seems to be missing the mark on that vision story.

You can't run a hurry-up offense all game long without a lot of substitutions; people burn out after a while. The same tends to happen with people who buy into that the-future-is-now mentality and through everything into furthering the revival.

Having a sense of urgency about serving the Lord's not bad; it beats the heck out of the rest of us, who are mostly sitting on our hands. I recall the quip from DL Moody about liking the way he did evangelism better than the way the critic didn't do it. However, such revivals have a way of burning people out, especially when the rhetoric and prophecies about a grand future for the move of God start to not live up to reality.

Revivals are fun, but we have to come back from the mountaintop and live our daily lives. It's living out things in a sustainable level that will be difficult for the revivalists to do and what scares me a bit about Bentley and company.

It's OK to huddle, to think, to absorb and take time to discern. It's easy to jump into the next New Thing, especially if you're in a charismatic culture that thrives on such stuff; it's hard to check whether a preacher's visions are from God of from last night's burrito, especially when you're conditioned to be open to New Things.

However, such new things need to be of God if they're to be followed. Bentley might cite a nice piece of scripture from Psalms in his vision, but it doesn't mean that his vision may well be a personal collage of CSI and badly-done Arminian theology.

God can use flawed characters, but we need not follow every burrito-burp; check out how a teaching meshes with Scripture and what you already understand of God before taking a preacher at face value. They're human.

In Bentley's case, his God is a bit too much of a loose cannon and has a bit too much emphasis on immediate response and action. He might be used by God in some ways, but I'd be leery of taking stock in him as a pastor and someone to follow.

I left a Vineyard church  here in metro Lexington we were looking at making our church home when they started to get too hyped up about the Lakeland Revival; I don't quite trust Bentley and I don't trust pastors who put too much trust in him. That's not to say that good things aren't happening in Lakeland; I just can't quite buy into Bentley's theology for the long-haul.

Morning Musings

This story broke on May 1st, but it almost feels like something that belongs on April 1st; UK has offered a scholarship to an 8th grade basketball phenom. As it turns out, the youngster is 15 (he had been held back a year) and that it's not the first time colleges have reached out to hot middle schoolers.

However, Freddie Adu wound up playing MLS soccer at 14, so it is plausible that young Michael Avery might be the next Kobe or LeBron and has Division I game even now.

__________

On to more serious notes; just as I assigned this as a case to my FIN 510 class, the Microsoft-Yahoo merger talks fell apart. Yahoo stock has dropped nearly 20% in European trading this morning.

That's probably good news for consumers. I shudder to think of what Micro$oft would have done with Yahoo, integrating things into Windows and MS Office a bit too tightly.

___________

Earth to Democrats. Jeremiah Wright was Obama's pastor for two decades, not some guy whose church he made a campaign stop or two at over the years. Thus, doing a Obama-Wright= McCain-John Hagee equation falls flat on its face.

If you've got some dirt on the Southern Baptist church McCain hangs his hat at in Pheonix, let it fly as a fair contrast to Wright. However, if you're hauling Hagee into the mix, it's then fair game to mine all of the various less-than-savory characters on the religious left (and secular left, like William Ayers) with an Obama tie, starting with Farrakhan.

It's not a game that is edifying, but it's a game that will be played if the pundits on the left keep going after Hagee.

Lakeland Revival Update

The Todd Bentley revival in Lakeland seems to have outgrown it's initial Ignited Church home and its sister church in Auburndale; they've been moving between the 7000-seat Lakeland Center and Marchant Stadium, the Detroit Tigers' spring training stadium. The Tampa Tribune piece on the revival does a decent stab at balance and background, going for replies from hostile heresy-hunter Hank Hanegraaff and a friendly take from Charisma magazine's J Lee Grady.

Mike LaPan, executive director of the Lakeland Center, estimated the crowd at nearly 7,000 Monday night and 4,000 to 5,000 Tuesday and Wednesday. Fresh Fire paid the Lakeland Center about $15,000 per day, said LaPan, who complimented the crowds for their behavior.

That's a good chunk of change; they'll need at least $3/head in donations just to cover the rental fees. The problem for the Bentley crew is that the Tigers' farm club in Lakeland uses the stadium and the Lakeland Center has other events.

The revival will return to the Lakeland Center from Monday through Thursday of next week.

"Bu after that, we're homeless," said Lynne Breidenbach, a spokeswoman for [Ignited Church pastor Stephen] Strader. Finding a venue for the services, which brought 5,000 or more people to the Lakeland Center each night this week, is a challenge.

"It's hard finding a place with 10,000 seats," said Breidenbach. She noted that revival organizers contacted the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa, but found that it was also booked.

Well, strangely enough, their old Carpenter's Home church would be perfect for the occasion. Unfortunately, they just got done selling it in 2006. Would they be gutsy enough to ask? Would the Church Without Walls (a Word-of-Faith-style joint that would be open in theory to such a revival) gutsy enough to go along and humble enough to let the local upstarts get first billing?

I'm mugwumping on the theological merits of this. It's hard to get objective information; you either have the Holy Spirit junkies who can't get enough of Bentley and this "Florida Outpouring" or you have the heresy-hunters who train both barrels at anything charismatic and noteworthy.

What we do seem to have is something that could be the Toronto of the late 00s; TACF had to buy a conference center and convert it into a church to handle their crowds.

At least people will have better weather to visit this revival in. We'll see how the charismatic pilgrims handle the "air you can wear" of a Florida summer.

Another Case for Global Brand Management

Here's an interesting case in point about giving regional managers a very short leash; Papa Johns was part of a promotion in Washington dissing LeBron James, who had complained about being roughed up by hard Wizard fouls during their series; they had Crybaby 23 jerseys printed up for their Washington fans.

Minor problem. Papa Johns also does business in Cleveland. What happens in DC doesn't stay in DC-

Papa John's Pizza issued an apology to Cleveland and the Cavaliers for making T-shirts with LeBron James' number and the word "crybaby" under it.

To apologize, Papa John's will sell Cleveland residents a large, one-topping pizza for 23 cents on Thursday. The 23 is an homage to James' jersey number. The company also will donate $10,000 to the Cavaliers Youth Fund.

That reminded me quite a bit of the absolute mess that a certain vodka company created when they ran an ad in Mexico with a fantasy map giving the southwest back to Mexico. American boozers (and non-boozers) complained and vowed to change brands.

I don't think selling vodka for $0.23 would make sense; I remember what 10-cent-beer night did in Cleveland years ago. What might be fitting is to move the price of a 750ml bottle down from $21.90, (if this Vermont site is a fair indication) to $18.48 to commemorate when the US got the Southwest from Mexico.

However, hard booze is often regulated by state folks, who often set prices to keep booze from being too competitive and people using liquor as loss leaders. So, that promotion would get regulated out of existence.

Closing thought for a menu joke for a jingoistic non-Tex-Mex restaurant: Dinner for two for $18.48 for Cinco de Mayo.

Rosey Musings

It's interesting watching the Kentucky Derby from Kentucky. Mind you, I'm far away from the zoo that is Louisville; Sullivan U has its main campus in Louisville, and one of the faculty members commuted over to teach here in Lexington, noting that the whole town is a zoo during Derby weekend; the line I overheard was that when you add a million people going to the Derby to the million people already in metro Louisville, things get very crowded.

That's a slight exaggeration; Metro Louisville does have about a million people, but the Derby only brings in about 150,000 to Churchill Downs.

The early favorite is Big Brown, who's 3-0 in his lifetime. The problem, like another big brown guy in the presidential race who's 3-0 in general election races, is that he hasn't been raced much.

Pyro was the favorite before laying an egg in the Blue Grass Stakes just down the road from us at Keeneland, but Keeneland uses synthetic Polytrack dirt on its track; much like some tennis players do well on clay and others on grass, Pyro might not have been a Poly horse; we'll see if he recovers today.

There's one filly, Eight Belles, who opted to pass on the muddy Kentucky Oaks yesterday and hang with the guys. If I had to put a bet on the paramutual window, I'd put a show bet on 20-1 shot Dennis of Cork, with last year's winner Calvin Borel aboard. I have a hunch that Bo-rail will have him in the hunt at the end.

My win pick? The Derby's death to favorites, but I'll play the front runner and pick Big Brown, Pyro and Dennis of Cork as my trifecta.

[Update 7:40PM-Two of three. Big Brown won and Dennis of Cork came in third (he went off as a 27-1 shot and paid $11.60 to show; not bad for my mythical $2 bet), but Eight Belles came in second before breaking both ankles right after the finish; she was "put down" on the track.]

World Politics Catch-Up

Lots of interesting things happening in the last while that I've neglected to blog on.

While it's only local elections, they weren't good news for Labour; the Conservatives won a lot of seats in local elections, with Labour actually falling behind the Liberal Democrats for second place in the popular vote nationwide.

The highlight of the voting from a Tory perspective was the win of Boris Johnson over "Red" Ken Livingston for London mayor. Johnson is a Young Turk in more ways than one; he's 43 and is of Turkish descent.

Boris the Bird or Boris the Spider? That mop of blond hair reminds me more than a bit of Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, the Tiger phenom of the mid 70s, but his first name has a Who earwig going.

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The Italian right got back into power last month. A retooled "People of Freedom" coalition headed by former PM and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi got a solid 47-38% plurality win over the main party of the left. It's not a bad time to be a person of the right in Europe, with the right in charge in Germany, Italy and France and Labour on the ropes in the UK.

__________

Semi-good news out of Zimbabwe; they finally announced the presidential results, and had opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai with a 48-43% first-round win. The problem is that he didn't get 50%, and goes into a runoff with Mugabe; Captain Morgan's MDC party will have to figure out whether they want to swallow hard and go into a runoff or insist that they were deprived of a clear majority by ZANU chicanery and take to the streets.

At least the ZANU folks didn't try to steal the election outright and allowed the MDC to have a majority of the lower house and a 50-50 split of the senate. The MDC's fear is that the ZANU folks will do a Kill-off-the-vote campaign in pro-MDC areas leading up to the runoff; the question in the long run is whether the ZANU hard-cases will go quietly if they do lose or start a civil war.

Star Wars Day

Your church may not note it, but Sunday is Star Wars Day. May the 4th be with you. "And with you as well."

We Windfall Down, We Get Up

Here's a list of five companies financial data for the last five years (in millions of dollars). Which ones look like they deserve the windfall profit treatment that is being proposed by many on the left, including both senators Clinton and Obama?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

		2007	2006	2005	2004	2003
Company A	Total Revenue	51,122.00	44,282.00	39,788.00	36,835.00	32,187.00
	Net Income	14,065.00	12,599.00	12,254.00	8,168.00	7,531.00
	Net Profit Margin	27.51%	28.45%	30.80%	22.17%	23.40%
Company B	Total Revenue	291,438.00	274,316.00	245,486.00	196,604.00	168,508.00
	Net Income	20,845.00	22,315.00	22,026.00	17,090.00	12,941.00
	Net Profit Margin	7.15%	8.13%	8.97%	8.69%	7.68%
Company C	Total Revenue	220,904.00	210,118.00	198,200.00	155,300.00	121,277.00
	Net Income	18,688.00	17,138.00	14,099.00	13,328.00	7,230.00
	Net Profit Margin	8.46%	8.16%	7.11%	8.58%	5.96%
Company D	Total Revenue	16,593.99	10,604.92	6,138.56	3,189.22	1,465.93
	Net Income	4,203.72	3,077.45	1,465.40	399.12	105.65
	Net Profit Margin	25.33%	29.02%	23.87%	12.51%	7.21%
Company E	Total Revenue	404,552.00	377,635.00	370,680.00	298,035.00	246,738.00
	Net Income	40,610.00	39,500.00	36,130.00	25,330.00	21,510.00
	Net Profit Margin	10.04%	10.46%	9.75%	8.50%	8.72%

Companies A and D seem to have far higher net profit margins that the other three; D's profit margins have tripled over the last four years, while A has stayed disgustingly high throughout the period.

Companies B, C and E have seen their net incomes go up in the last four years, but they've been much less profitable, with only E managing to break a net profit margin of 10%.

It would seem that A and D would be the companies with excess profits, charging far more than things cost them.

Unfortunately, company A is Microsoft and company D is Google. Company's B, C and E are BP, Chevron and Exxon.

These big oil companies are making big profits, but mainly due to the fact that the cost of their products have roughly doubled. If you double sales, you'd expect to double profits; if you doubled sales and kept the total net income the same, why go through all the extra work and risk to do the extra sales?

We don't see Barack and Hillary screaming about Bill Gates gouging folks for Windows Vista or Office 2007 or see congressmen looking to have Google cut their advertising fees they charge. Yet they're making more of an economic profit than the oil companies are.

Windfall profits taxes wouldn't cut gas prices; it would actually raise them in the long run, by discouraging the big companies from investing in new projects that would bring more supply to the market. You'd merely get a wealth transfer from stockholders of oil companies to the US government. It's one way of raising money in a politically-popular manner.

The problem is, there really isn't much of a "windfall profit" in the mix; if you're taxing income over X billion dollars extra, as the likely format would be, you're merely taxing bigness. If the threshold was $10 billion, watch Exxon's $40 billion in income morph into four or five Mini Tigers each making $9 billion.

Thankfully, such proposals are election-year talk that won't be translated into law, at least while Dubya's sitting in the Oval Office. 2009's another matter, but even then, the logistics of such a law will make it hard to pass and harder to actually get any money out of, since Big Oil that would be big enough to be tax will become Not-Quite-That-Big-Oil via spinoffs in a hurry.

The Wages of Sin

If you're Take-Two Interactive, Grand Theft Auto's maker, it's about $360 million. That's the estimated take of the fourth incarnation this week, looking at 6 million of advance orders at $60 a pop. That's more than all but the biggest movie blockbusters bring in and is on target to be the biggest selling video game to date.

Living out the life of a gangster in a video game, complete with sex and violence, doesn't appeal to me, but it seems to appeal to a large slice of the American populous, about 2% of which are willing to fork over a healthy chunk of change in order to enter antihero Nico's universe. When you add friends and family, that may be more like 10% who'll be introduced to the amoral mix.

That's rather bracing. I have five guys in my FIN 324 class that I just finished teaching; given that they're all in that 20-something gaming-friendly demographic, there's a decent chance that one of them was taking in the GTA4 universe.

How does that amorality affect one's world-view? It might not make people jaded, but it will encourage people who are to stay that way.

How many folks in your church are playing GTA4? More that we think, I would imagine.