African Aid

Keving DeYoung takes a look at Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo.

Kevin says the book is: “a short, pungent, provocative book.”

The thesis is simple and controversial: aid is the problem, not the solution. “In the past fifty years,” she writes, “over US$1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. In the past decade alone, on the back of Live 8, Make Poverty History, the Millennium Development Goals, the Millennium Challenge Account, the Africa Commission, and the 2005 G7 meeting (to name a few), millions of dollars each year have been raised in rich countries to support charities working for Africa.” Sounds good, right? But has the more than one trillion dollars in assistance made Africa made people better off? Moyo says “no.” In fact, she argues that aid has helped make the poor poorer and growth slower. “The notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so, is a myth…Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world” (xix).

Go read the rest of Kevin’s post for his complete review of the book including the problems caused by foreign aid and some possible solutions. Good intentions aren’t enough. As good stewards, Christians should insist on good results of the aid our churches give.

you might also take a look at Kevin’s series on When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself by Brian Fikkert.

All three parts are linked in my post here.

foto friday

sunset with fill

morning snapshot

finally got the B&W film I took at Katherine’s wedding developed

Veterans Day

Veterans,

thank you so much for your service to this country.

HT to Veronique de Rugy from Normandy for whom Veterans Day has special significance.

lukewarm and loving it?

Francis Chan’s question three years ago is are you lukewarm and loving it? well?

Health Care Reform

The Wall Street Journal is quoting John Cassidy from The New Yorker explaining what Obamacare really is and why Nancy Pelosi was willing to sacrifice the careers of several House members to get it passed:

Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. “The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment,” he writes. “Let’s not pretend that it isn’t a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won’t. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind.”

Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals of “making the United States a more equitable country” and furthering the Democrats’ “political calculus.” In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.

emphasis added.

In short, it is the simplest most direct route to changing the United States of America at a fundamental level.

Here is Mr. Cassidy’s blog post on the matter if you want to see how he believes the above items are a feature not a bug.

That takes me back to where I began. Both in terms of the political calculus of the Democratic Party, and in terms of making the United States a more equitable society, expanding health-care coverage now and worrying later about its long-term consequences is an eminently defensible strategy. Putting on my amateur historian’s cap, I might even claim that some subterfuge is historically necessary to get great reforms enacted.

20 years ago today

the Berlin Wall came down. It was an amazingly euphoric moment in time celebrating the end of Stasi driven tyranny of the East German Government over its people.

I remember Lech Walesa and Solidarity in Poland and just what an amazing year 1989 was for the world. Most of all, I remember a man in leadership who knew evil when he saw it. Who had the determination and conviction that western liberal democracy was the best system in which the most people could be the most prosperous. Who was willing to take the fight to the enemy in order to defeat them. Who called for the wall to come down two years before it did:

and oh when it did. I sat in the living room of the very old very small mobile home that I had shared with my lovely wife of less than a year and I cried like a baby. I still tear up when I see this footage. simply an awesome moment of triumph of good over evil. a reward for sustained perseverance over forty years.

Such an unalloyed net gain of goodness for the people of Eastern Europe.

BUT. Such triumphs apparently have a short shelf life. Two data points (many more could be mentioned) suffice to show the ephemeral nature of the gains made.

Number 1 and most importantly, Barack Obama won’t go to Germany to celebrate the victory with the people most directly impacted. He seems somehow ashamed of the fact that we won the Cold War. His speech in Berlin during the campaign was strangely silent on the unique American role in the triumph and long on his own uniqueness. If the leader of the country which was instrumental in the victory won’t celebrate it as a victory, then there is a serious problem.

Number 2 some people in former East Germany would rather live in the oppressive regime that was defeated 20 years ago rather than live in freedom. These people would rather live in squalor but security with a pittance from the government rather than be unleashed to achieve for themselves with the attendant risk of failure. here is the list of benefits lost in East Germany:

Since the demise of the GDR, many have come to recognise and regret that the genuine “social achievements” they enjoyed were dismantled: social and gender equality, full employment and lack of existential fears, as well as subsidised rents, public transport, culture and sports facilities

This movie might be a good reminder of what evil reigned in Eastern Germany.

HT to Hot Air for the shameless theft of video

UPDATE:

via Veronique de Rugy another video on the evils of communism:

UPDATE II:

Pete Wehner on the fall of one wall and the death of a soul killing state. Here is his conclusion, but go read the whole thing.

Twenty years ago the Wall came tumbling down. A sadistic, soul-killing police state came to an end. And the United States — in confronting Soviet Communism, in supporting the forces of liberty across the globe, and in refusing to grow weary in doing good — added another remarkable and estimable chapter to its record of achievement. That, I think, is in large part the meaning of this anniversary.

health care

Nancy Pelosi has pulled out an armtwistinghardballnoholdsbarredrazorthinpartisan “victory” in passing a plan for the Government to take over all of our health care decisions. Notice the bipartisan nature of the opposition.

anyway, check out this very important Wall Street Journal editorial on the bill and what it means if it passes the Senate.

Let no one suggest this was the “bipartisan” health reform that Mr. Obama has long promised.

The bill is instead a breathtaking display of illiberal ambition, intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the umbilical cord of “universal health care.” It creates a vast new entitlement, financed by European levels of taxation on business and individuals. The 20% corner of Medicare open to private competition is slashed, while fiscally strapped states are saddled with new Medicaid burdens. The insurance industry will have to vet every policy with Washington, which will regulate who it must cover, what it can offer, and how much it can charge.

go read the rest and start hoping that the Blanche Lincoln’s and Mary Landrieu’s of the world have better sense than to further this thing along.

six flags over Jesus

compare and contrast this to this.

here is an excerpt from the first one:

Q: What can the church expect to gain from all the changes?

A: The transformation of our campus will dramatically increase First Baptist’s ability to minister to our city. It will make room for hundreds or even thousands more worshipers and Sunday School attendees and will vastly increase our capacity for weekday groups. The worship center in particular will also be an iconic presence in the city, standing boldly as a continuation of our legacy in downtown Dallas.

Q: What are the distinctive intent and features of the new campus design?

A: The design is filled with messages about our church. The glass, the water, the light and the spaciousness of the plan speak of openness, transparency and spiritual refreshment. In a way, the glass walls have an evangelistic effect: people walking by have a view in from the street and feel drawn in. The glass also unifies the architecture of the church by extending the aesthetic started by the Criswell Center, which was built in 2006, and thus capitalizes on our $50 million investment in that multi-purpose facility. As for long-term cost, modern technologies allow vast use of glass with surprising energy efficiency.

emphasis added.
just an unbelievably huge demonstration of the attractional church mentality. They are saying that we will minister to our city by making room for hundreds or even thousands more to assemble here in an even bigger [glass-walled] room. Isn’t there a better and more direct way to “minister to the city”?

Contrast this to the second one:

Convicted by the verse to “love your neighbor as yourself,” Chan showed up at the next board meeting with an agenda. In the early years, Cornerstone gave away 4 percent of its budget. Chan asked them to give away 50 percent. Cuts in staff salaries and serious sacrifices in programs would have to be made, but it only took a half hour for the board to agree.

Rick Utley, an elder, says that decision “has produced a heart in Cornerstone unlike any church I have ever been involved with. The blessings that have come with it are hard to quantify.” Utley says it would now be hard for him to worship in a church that didn’t make the adjustments and sacrifices Cornerstone made to give at this level.

In 2008 the church will give away 55 percent of its budget to the poor and hungry through various ministries, including a $1 million annual commitment to Children’s Hunger Fund and a sizeable contribution to World Impact, which plants churches in urban America.
….
Chan didn’t want any part of it. “I kept thinking about all those people I’d seen in third world countries and it made me sick.”

Chan thought he knew what Jesus would do. He’d say, “Meet me at the park.” That was what Chan wanted. Just a patch of grass where the church could gather.

The solution was an outdoor amphi-theater, a simple structure enjoyed by the community during the week and used as a gathering place for worship on Sunday. The plan would save tens of millions of dollars. Even the elders got behind the idea.

If it rained, they’d get wet knowing their money was feeding the hungry.

emphasis added.

just go read both and think for a few minutes about how we do church in this country. Do you want to be a part of something like the glass walled extravaganza or the outdoor ampitheater?

hat tip to Challies for the link to Jared Wilson and hat tip to Jared Wilson for the links to the comparison and the title above.

phriday photos

we went camping last weekend and here is one of the dogs camping with us.

Nikon F5 on Fujifilm

Some trees, sun and campfire smoke

nikon d300

and here are David and Paula, our friends with whom we were camping

canon powershot S90 with forced flash for fill

This is the end of the line for the prosperity gospel

I wish that I could embed vimeo videos. you have got to see this 8.5 minute clip from The Global Conversation. It might make you sick, but you must watch it.

The Prosperity Gospel from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.

after watching that, don’t you hate the prosperity gospel as much as John Piper does?

HT to Z.

Logos 4 is out

Libronix has come out with Logos 4. Here is a video introduction of the new product. It looks really great, but I will wait till they get the Mac kinks worked out before I make the leap. Can’t wait to keep everything in Logos synced on my iPhone.

I am still using the old Logos on my Windows XP virtual machine and quite happy with it. Logos 4 looks like a good reason to make the upgrade to the Mac version when it is ready.

more from Piper on the prosperity gospel

here are ten minutes from John Piper about the prosperity gospel and why he hates it.

more here from Dr. Mohler and John Piper being more strident on this topic.

Hat tip to Vitamin Z.

a change of heart

interesting story of the conversion of a planned parenthood center director from providing abortions to pro-life. Probably everybody has seen this already, but just in case you haven’t, here it is.

hat tip to just about everybody that I normally read.

Los Angeles Times’ William Voegeli gets it

William Voegeli gets it and what he gets is in the title and the lede of yesterday’s Los Angeles Times column.

The Golden State isn’t worth it

Our high-benefit/high-tax model no longer works, especially compared with low-tax states like Texas.

here are the first two paragraphs, but please go read the rest.

In America’s federal system, some states, such as California, offer residents a “package deal” that bundles numerous and ambitious public benefits with the high taxes needed to pay for them. Other states, such as Texas, offer packages combining modest benefits and low taxes. These alternatives, of course, define the basic argument between liberals and conservatives over what it means to get the size and scope of government right.

It’s not surprising, then, that there’s an intense debate over which model is more admirable and sustainable. What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit/low-tax package not only succeeds on its own terms but also according to the criteria used to defend its opposite. In other words, the superior public goods that supposedly justify the high taxes just aren’t being delivered.

Government programs are almost never the best way to address social problems. Private charity and private business are much more efficient in delivering on their promises. They have to be or donations or business dry up as donors and customers go elsewhere. Market competition works.

Very important lesson for the country and especially democrats in Congress to keep in mind as they contemplate health care reform and cap and trade legislation.

Hat tip to Powerline’s John Hinderaker who says:

Texas, increasingly, is the economic and intellectual leader of the U.S. During the last 18 months before the current recession took hold, while the country as a whole was still creating jobs, more than half of those jobs were created in a single state: Texas.

Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so.

foto friday

messing around with bokeh and depth of field in the Parma’s grass.

This one with my 300mm f4 and water droplets on the grass

and this one with my 80-200mm f2.8 and a leaf (new custom header picture)

here is a two flash “strobist” take on decorative grass headers

sb800 to camera left about two feet from the grass. Sb800 on the camera about 6 or 7 feet from the grass. both flashes bare. both on TTL.

where we are

Christian Smith and Patricia Snell have written a book that looks fascinating. It is called Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults

at the link above you can read extended excerpts from the book and get a feel for what Christian and Patricia are doing therein. Take a look at Page 13 for an excellent example of the dominant religious thinking of the age in which we live.

“Behind many of Brad’s answers is the apparent view that an individual’s choice of beliefs–influenced by his or her family socialization, of course–is mostly what makes those beliefs true, at least for that person.”

a very subjective view of right and wrong predominates. Anyone paying attention can see it everywhere around us. it is the water in which we swim. It is our version of the world/zeitgeist/Present Age to which Paul says we are not to be conformed in Romans 12:2.

HT to Phil Ryken who has the following quote from the book and brief but on target response:

The moral outlook of many young Americans–an ethic based on emotions rather than on reasoned principles–was encapsulated in the words of one respondent, when asked to explain how to tell the difference between right and wrong:

“Morality is how I feel too, because in my heart, I could feel it. You could feel what’s right or wrong in your heart as well as your mind. Most of the time, I always felt, I feel it in my heart and it makes it easier for me to morally decide what’s right and wrong. Because if I feel about doing something, I’m going to feel it in my heart, and if it feels good, I’m going to do it.”

For more on the consequences of doing what your heart feels, consult Jeremiah 17:9.

By the way, does Phil’s quote above remind you of another quote from someone more famous than one of these young adults?

remember this?

GG:Do you believe in heaven?

OBAMA:Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?

GG:A place spiritually you go to after you die?

OBAMA:What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, that I will be rewarded. I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die.But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.
When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.

GG:Do you believe in sin?

OBAMA:Yes.

GG:What is sin?

OBAMA:Being out of alignment with my values.

GG:What happens if you have sin in your life?

OBAMA:I think it’s the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I’m true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I’m not true to it, it’s its own punishment.

speaking ill of others

Nathan Finn posted some great advice from Charles Simeon regarding what to do when hearing someone tell you a bad report about another person:

This sage advice comes from Charles Simeon, the great 19th century Anglican evangelical:

1st – To hear as little as possible what is to the prejudice of others.

2nd – To believe nothing of the kind till I am absolutely forced to it.

3rd – Never to drink into the spirit of one who circulates an ill report.

4th - Always to moderate, as far as I can, the unkindness which is expressed towards others.

5th – Always to believe, that if the other side were heard, a very different account would be given of the matter.

From Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (Eerdmans, 1977), p. 134.

It reminded me of the Texas Lawyers Creed which is the aspirational goal for how lawyers are to deal with one another, their clients and courts. It especially reminded me of this part of the Creed that seems to be ignored by so many lawyers (and people):

I will not, without good cause, attribute bad motives or unethical conduct to opposing counsel nor bring the profession into disrepute by unfounded accusations of impropriety. I will avoid disparaging personal remarks or acrimony towards opposing counsel, parties and witnesses. I will not be influenced by any ill feeling between clients. I will abstain from any allusion to personal peculiarities or idiosyncrasies of opposing counsel.

abortion as genocide

Margaret Sanger and her monstrous eugenic aspirations for abortion on demand appear to be bearing fruit.

Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available.

Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race in 2005, according to the CDC.  During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 blacks nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined.  These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year.

HT to Challies

two other small data points on this issue.

Here is Kathryn Lopez’s explication of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood.

and here is the Republican candidate for Congress in NY’s 23d district, Dede Scozzafava accepting the Margaret Sanger award. No wonder the third party candidacy of Doug Hoffman on the Conservative Party line is likely to either win or at least finish in second ahead of such a “republican” or as Mark Steyn calls her a DIABLO (Democrat in all but label only).

Restless hearts

Justin Taylor posts the following quote from C.S. Lewis regarding our restless hearts.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperOne, 1980), pp. 49–50:

What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other.

HT: Tony Reinke

Another hard one

Stand to Reason Blog found a place on the net called “The Abortioneers” which has since disappeared but remains visible in Google cache. Here is the paper abstract and information.

the article by L Harris is very interesting stuff. she acknowledges her deep ambivalence at performing abortions:

To reflect seriously on the question of how providers determine their limit for abortion, one must be willing to cross borders and boundaries (including seemingly inflexible ones like “pro-choice” and “pro-life”). Therefore, speaking as a provider, I will focus on aspects of abortion care that we don’t normally talk about, issues for which no room has been made in current pro-choice abortion discourse, many of which may frankly be too dangerous for pro-choice movements to acknowledge. They are:

• personal and psychological aspects of second trimester abortion provision

• visual and visceral dimensions of second trimester abortion

• violence inherent in abortion, especially apparent in the second trimester

• legitimate ethical and moral issues providers may have with second trimester abortion, as distinct from first trimester abortion.

There are reasons for the noticeable silence on these more difficult aspects of abortion service provision, as I will discuss. However, ultimately, I argue that this silence is harmful to individual providers, to the abortion rights movement itself, to public opinion around abortion, and perhaps most importantly, to the women and couples who need our services. I will make the case for a new kind of abortion and pro-choice discourse – one which is honest about the nature of abortion procedures – and which uses this honesty to strengthen abortion care

especially personal here:

When I was a little over 18 weeks pregnant with my now pre-school child, I did a second trimester abortion for a patient who was also a little over 18 weeks pregnant. As I reviewed her chart I realised that I was more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts when I was done, since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus. I went about doing the procedure as usual, removed the laminaria I had placed earlier and confirmed I had adequate dilation. I used electrical suction to remove the amniotic fluid, picked up my forceps and began to remove the fetus in parts, as I always did. I felt lucky that this one was already in the breech position – it would make grasping small parts (legs and arms) a little easier. With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick – a fluttery “thump, thump” in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a “thump, thump” in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes – without me – meaning my conscious brain – even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling – a brutally visceral response – heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life. Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.

The point is that, visually and viscerally, doing an 18-week abortion is different from doing an eight-week abortion. Removing a microscopic fetus and gestational sac is visually and viscerally different from removing what looks like a fully formed but small baby. Though I focus on D&E here, similar difficulties hold true for second trimester medical abortion.

What do you do with experiences and sensations like mine? Providers of second trimester abortions see things that most people don’t. What kind of dissociative process inside us allows us to do this routinely? What normal person does this kind of work? This brings me to the issue of violence.

and here is her conclusion on violence:

It is worth considering for a moment the relationship of feminism to violence. In general feminism is a peaceful movement. It does not condone violent problem-solving, and opposes war and capital punishment. But abortion is a version of violence. What do we do with that contradiction? How do we incorporate it into what we are as a movement, in particular a feminist movement? In feminist sociological and anthropological literature, the permissibility of acknowledging the legitimacy of any “pro-life” arguments is in dispute. Some scholars consider the possibility that understanding the anti-abortion side of things is all right, and in fact may lead the way to finding common ground with those who oppose abortion.^{[16], [17] and [18]} Others argue that there is no room for compromise or finding a middle ground – that there is no ground to give up in this hard fought battle.¹⁹

But where does that leave the abortion provider and team? What do we do when caught between pro-choice discourse that, while it reflects our values, does not accurately reflect the full extent of our experience of abortion and in fact contradicts an enormous part of it, and the anti-abortion discourse and imagery that may actually be more closely aligned to our experience but is based in values we do not share? Where do we go to talk about it? It is one of the notable gaps, silences in the provision of abortion care – I would argue to the detriment of the pro-choice movement, and in particular to more widespread availability of second trimester abortion.

but yet, even in the face of all of that ambivalence and recognition of the reality of what she is doing, she remains unalterably committed to abortion on demand. ” I must add, however, that I consider declining a woman’s request for abortion also to be an act of unspeakable violence.”

and check this bit out:

We might conclude at this point that a provider who feels that abortion is violent is simply ambivalent, conflicted, is not really committed to women’s abortion rights, and just shouldn’t be doing this work. “Pro-life” supporters may argue that the kind of stories and sentiments I’ve relayed spell the end of abortion – that honest speech acts regarding the reality of abortion will weaken the pro-choice movement to the point where it cannot sustain itself any longer. I want to make the case that honesty about abortion work can be the basis for a stronger movement – one that makes it easier for providers and the teams they work with to do all abortions, especially second trimester abortions.

There are ethical and moral positions that make complete sense of the position that says women should have full access to abortion – but simultaneously allow for discomfort with aborted second trimester fetuses. Two traditions prevail in philosophical discussions of abortion and the fetus: conservative views based in natural law, which argue for the inviolability of fetal life from the moment of conception; and liberal views based in Enlightenment principles, in which what matters most is an achievement reached – sentience or birth.²²

Really, what can you say? Stand to Reason points out the extreme capability of the human mind to deal with cognitive dissonance with rationalization. That is a fair observation. but keep in mind always that there is a destroying deceitful deceiving adversary helping us selfish self-centered human beings in our rationalization process.

HT to the Z man again.

the gospel

another post defining the Gospel. this one is excellent. check out the whole post, but here is the meat of the coconut:

So what is the gospel?

Although this brief survey is far from complete, it consistently reveals that the gospel is good news concerning Jesus and what he did to accomplish salvation for sinners.

In other words, the gospel is objective. It tells us what God has done to save his people. It consists of concrete, historical events, rooted in Old Testament promises, types, and institutions that were fulfilled in Jesus. It promises that all who trust in Christ and his work will receive forgiveness and life. Of course, this isn’t merely a catalogue of events of only historical interest; all of this has massive implications for our lives. But we must not confuse the gospel message itself with the outworking of those implications.

HT to the Z man.

photo phriday

these weeds have been fascinating me and I finally got the chance to photograph them this week.

and I bought a canon point and shoot (powershot S90) to carry around for more spontaneous pictures. It is a great little camera.

new First Things blog

there is a new blog in the fold at First Things. It is Evangel. Headed up by Dr. Russell Moore and written by him and several others including Justin Taylor and Joe Carter. Looks like a good one to check out.

the Jesus threat

Todd Bumgarner posts an interesting quote from John Stott. what do you think about this?

The context is Stott talking about the first century Jewish people and their priests and how they reacted and responded to Jesus’ ministry:

“So they felt threatened by Jesus.  He undermined their prestige, their hold over the people, their own self-confidence and self-respect, while leaving his intact.  They were “envious” of him, and therefore determined to get rid of him.  It is significant that Matthew recounts two jealous plots to eliminate Jesus, the first by Herod the Great at the beginning of his life and the other by the priests at its end.  Both felt their authority under threat.  So both sought to “destroy” Jesus (Mt 2:13; 27:20 AV). However outwardly respectable the priests’ political and theological arguments may have appeared, it was envy which led them to “hand over” Jesus to Pilate to be destroyed (Mk 15:1, 10).

The same evil passion influences our own contemporary attitudes to Jesus.  He is still, as C. S. Lewis called him, “a transcendental interferer.” We resent his intrusions into our privacy, his demand for our homage, his expectation of our obedience. Why can’t he mind his own business, we ask petulantly, and leave us alone? To which he instantly replies that we are his business and that he will never leave us alone. So we too perceive him as a threatening rival who disturbs our peace, upsets our status quo, undermines our authority and diminishes our self-respect. We too want to get rid of him.”

–John Stott, The Cross of Christ. p58

photo phriday

Tuesday morning was very foggy misty and gray.

Tuesday afternoon was sunny and very bright.

tried the 50 f1.4 for under the basket shots.