Then to forget to post Bible Study last night! Yesterday morning when I usually write our studies, I instead had a lecture to give to pastor's on "What Makes Worship Christian?" I compared Moralistic Therapeutic Deism to Karl Barth's doctrine of proclamation as central for the Church in Church Dogmatics I.1. It is always interesting speaking to other evangelical preachers. Their commitment to "experience" as central, to contemporary cultural currents always bring tensions into the room, and hesitancy to embrace the historic Christian faith except as backgroud "belief" statements makes it hard for me to speak as a professor to this group -- especially when I represent the university and its rightful concern for constituency relations.

With this extra responsibility followed by advising chapel, I just flaked out. I apologize deeply.

I'm trying to get some thoughts, time, and energy together. So much is going on within the United States today, and locally here. People on the streets are cold without blankets here in San Diego. The weather has shifted very quickly (for San Diego) from Santa Anna hot conditions to fall. Our inclement weather shelter was open Monday night (I haven't heard how it went). Tuesday night downtown the clothes that we had went quickly, with folk looking for warmer clothing. I hope that tonight I might get some blankets to take to Tim and his friends at 16th and Broadway as they try to accumulate the necessary goods to stay warm while sleeping.

Even then as I try to work on grant proposals on how Vatican II influenced "Wesleyan theology", the offense of the White House Iraq Group (interestingly with the acronym 'WHIG') in 'marketing the war' through dissemination of disinformation, the fact that 25% of US personnel come back from Iraq with mental and health problems, and the continued destruction of human beings in Iraq, our local task remains clear. To come together to hear the proclamation of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament for pardon and sanctification that pushes us to witness to the kingdom of God through the works of mercy in and among the poor -- to be a holy people amidst a world gone mad. We cannot ignore the wider issues -- for they remind us that the world, created good by God, has been taken over by the principalities and powers. But we have to show the world that there are different ways to live, that difference is possible in the concrete existence of human lives through friendship with God in Christ that leads to friendship with those who are poor in the world.