What? No Blood in the Streets? None of My Blood? Maybe We Should be Selling.

The Wall Street Journal Today headlines an article “Retirement Investors Flock Back to Stocks: Equities Account for Highest Percentage of new Contributions into 401(k) Plans Since Crisis.”   The article reports in part: 

Individual investors, notorious for mistiming the market, didn't fare well in the financial downturn. At the stock market's peak in October 2007, investors put 69% of new 401(k) contributions into stocks, according to Aon Hewitt. The S&P 500 went on to lose 57% of its value by March 2009.

Some financial advisers now worry that retirement investors could be late to the game, pouring into stocks after much of the easy gains have already been had. This year, the S&P 500 is 1.9% higher, but it is 0.4% off its record high hit at the beginning of April. By comparison, in the first four months of last year, the S&P 500 was 11% higher. 

A friend of mine and I had our portfolios in a 55% equity and 45% fixed-income mix as the crash approached.  When it occurred, he sold his equities in large part because of fear that the market would never recover.  Under the discipline that Investor Solutions applies (our representative is Rob Gordon), we bought equities to restore our 55/45 allocation.   We rode back up when the market improved.  My friend’s portfolio did not.  Our overall return since the crash is about 4.2%, after all fees.

Russia’s stock market is down.  Everyone is getting out of Russia.  We have a very small allocation to Russia through one of the index mutual funds in which Investor Solutions has us invest.  As to the very small allocation, we are buying Russia.

This quote from the Investopedia website gives you the flavor of that investment approach:

Baron Rothschild, an 18th century British nobleman and member of the Rothschild banking family, is credited with saying that "The time to buy is when there's blood in the streets."

He should know. Rothschild made a fortune buying in the panic that followed the Battle of Waterloo against Napoleon. But that's not the whole story. The original quote is believed to be "Buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own."

This is contrarian investing at its heart - the strongly-held belief that the worse things seem in the market, the better the opportunities are for profit.

Most people only want winners in their portfolios, but as Warren Buffett warned, "You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus." In other words, if everyone agrees with your investment decision, then it's probably not a good one.

Dementia as a Family Disease

This article by Gary Epstein-Lubow, in the April issue of the journal Health Affairs describes not just his mother-in-law's dementia but its affects on her husband of 55 years and the rest of her loving family.  From the article:

A recent Alzheimer's Association report estimated that more than 15 million Americans are providing unpaid care to a loved one with dementia.  .  .  .  A short-term plan is needed, with more attention to families.  We need care for the caregivers to be integrated into care for the patients.  When my mother-in-law was in the hospital, I was disappointed (but not surprised) that nobody stopped to ask my wife [the daughter], or anyone in the family: "How are you doing?"

Coffee Bad for You? Say It Ain't So!

Chronic coffee consumption has a detrimental effect on aortic stiffness and wave reflections by Charalambos Vlachopoulos in the June 2005 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found, “Chronic coffee consumption exerts a detrimental effect on aortic stiffness and wave reflections, which may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.”¹   This study shows that coffee causes its ill effects by impairing the function of the arteries, which increases the risk that these blood channels supplying the heart muscle will be compromised, leading to a heart attack.

Comments:

The results of studies on the effects of coffee drinking on the risk of death from heart disease are conflicting; however, the evidence seems to indicate that at high levels of consumption this popular drug is detrimental.  Besides the manner of harm found in this study, other mechanisms may account for more heart disease in coffee drinkers.  There are two substances found in coffee beans, cafestol and kahweol, which raise total cholesterol, “bad” LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides.²  On average, cholesterol is increased by 10%; but very potent boiled coffee can raise total cholesterol by as much as 23% (that could mean a 50 mg/dl increase for someone starting with an average cholesterol of 210 mg/dl).  Triglycerides may be increased by a similar amount. Coffee will raise the systolic blood pressure (top number) by 5 to 15 mmHg and the diastolic (bottom number) by 5 to 10 mmHg.³  People who are heavy coffee drinkers may also have a tendency to abuse themselves in other ways, such as consuming more heart damaging, high-fat, high-cholesterol foods.

Coffee drinking rightly deserves its reputation as “a bad habit.”  For more help with this addiction please refer to two previous newsletters found in my archives:  July 2004: Coffee - Pleasure or Pain, and October 2004: Tea Time Increases Life Time.

1)  Vlachopoulos C, Panagiotakos D, Ioakeimidis N, Dima I, Stefanadis C.  Chronic coffee consumption has a detrimental effect on aortic stiffness and wave reflections.  Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Jun;81(6):1307-12.

2)  Urgert R, Katan MB.  The cholesterol-raising factor from coffee beans. Annu Rev Nutr. 1997;17:305-24.

3)  James JE. .  Critical review of dietary caffeine and blood pressure: a relationship that should be taken more seriously.  Psychosom Med. 2004 Jan-Feb;66(1):63-71.

 -from the McDougall Newsletter, July 2005

[The links are "live."]

The Legacy of "conversionary Prostestants" in Pakistan

Despite the threats from the Taliban and other extremists, a recently publicized study by Robert Woodberry, a sociologist and professor at the National University of Singapore, showed the presence of “conversionary Protestant” missionaries helps to explain why some nations develop stable democracies. 

After 10 years of postgraduate study, Woodberry concluded in a study published by the American Political Science Review in 2012: 
 
“Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations.”
 
Woodberry told Christianity Today, “Even in places where few people converted, [missionaries] had a profound economic and political impact.”
 
Pakistanis, including Muslims like Ambassador Ahmed, appreciate their presence: “You must pay [those teachers] a compliment, and I’m a Muslim. They taught me [while first attending Burn Hall, a school run by Roman Catholic priests in Pakistan and then Forman Christian College in Lahore] and allowed me through this education to contribute to [my] knowledge, understanding, and play a role in bridge building [between Christians and Muslims]. If I hadn’t been, I couldn’t play that role.”

-from "Leaving a Legacy: A turbulent nation with growing extremism lives outside their doors, but many of Pakistan's historic mission schools thrive with support of Muslim Leaders" by Kaitlyn Speer, in World Magazine's April 5, 2014 issue.  The article includes an interview of Akbar Ahmed,"a leading authority on Islam who teaches at American University and a former ambassador to the U.K."

New On the Nightstand

Stark, Rodney, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, quoted by Felipe Assis, the Crossbridge Senior pastor, in a recent sermon.  (Felipe's sermons are extraordinarily good.  Here is a link to podcasts of them.  The one yesterday, Keep Calm, the best Easter sermon in my memory, was vintage Assis.)

Bainton, Roland H., Erasmus of Christendom.  More Reformation reading.  And because Bainton wrote it.  From Bainton's preface:

             I have long been drawn to Erasmus on a number of counts. I share his aversion to contention, his abhorrence of war, his wistful skepticism with respect to that which transcends the verifiable; at the same time I am warmed by the glow of his piety. I am convinced of the soundness of the place assigned by him to the classical alongside of the Judaeo-Christian in the heritage of the Western world. I relish his whimsicality and satire. I endorse his conviction that language is still the best medium for the transmission of thought, language not merely read but heard with cadence and rhythm as well as clarity and precision.

            Yet I should probably never have undertaken this assignment were Erasmus lacking in contemporary relevance. He is important for the dialogue which he desired never to see closed between Catholics and Protestants. He is important for the strategy of reform, violent or non-violent. He was resolved to abstain from violence alike of word and deed, but was not sure that significant reform could be achieved sine tumultu. He would neither incite nor abet it. The more intolerant grew the contenders, the more he recoiled and strove to mediate. He ended as the battered liberal. Can it ever be otherwise? This is precisely the problem of our time.

Easy Auto DIY Projects

At the Metrorail station one weekday morning recently, I failed to turn off the lights on our 2006 Toyota 4Runner after parking it for the day.  Of course the car would not start when I came back at the end of the day.  With Carol's car, we jump-started the 4Runner and got it home, but the battery was at the end of its useful life and would not hold a charge very well thereafter.  We learned a couple of things from this experience.

One is that our 4Runner's "hood lift supports" had worn out.  This made it a bit of a challenge to run the jump cables from Carol's car to the 4Runner, but we managed.  I had a dowel at home in the garage that I could use as a prop on a temporary basis.

Another thing I realized is that I never check the oil anymore on our automobiles, as I once did as a matter of practice when I gassed up.  If I had been doing that, I would have noticed that the hood lift supports had worn out.  It would have been more convenient to learn that during a stop at the gas station than at the end of a workday, dressed in a business suit and in the midst of a minor emergency.  When you have the practice of lifting the hood periodically to check the oil, it gives you a moment to focus on what is happening to your car generally.

I learned a little more how an auto battery works and its limited purpose of supplying ignition with a big burst of energy that pretty much depletes it and some lighting, both of which need a decent drive to recharge it for the next starting challenge.  After awhile the things simply wear out.  I refreshed myself on the chemistry, looked at our records to see how long we had owned the one that had failed and what it cost.  All of those things helped me make the decision to simply replace it.

So faced with the need to replace the battery and replace the hood supports, do I take the 4Runner to the Toyota dealership?  Ugh.  Just the cost in time of taking the car to the dealer is heavy these days.  Is this, then, a reasonable DIY project?  It proved to be, with the availability of information on the internet.

This video suggested to me that replacing the hood supports might be very easy.  The internet has plenty on changing a car battery as well, but I had done that project before.  So I pulled the battery out, and, on my second try, found an auto-parts store where English was adequately spoken and North American customs of  service and customer attention are reasonably observed. 

There I learned that it is important to know some details about the automobile for which you are buying the battery.  For example, does our 4Runner have a V6 or a V8?  (Not a clue.)  Another: what are the dimensions of the little rectangular pan on which the battery sits?  (Still no clue.)  However, I did have the old battery with me and the NAPA sales person, who was very helpful, matched what he had in stock with what I needed to replace.  (The transaction at the NAPA store included their disposal of the old battery.)

However, he did not have in stock replacement hood supports that would fit.  So back to the internet, to Amazon, and to exactly what I needed via mail order.  In a matter of 20 minutes yesterday afternoon, with Carol holding up the hood, we replaced the hood supports.

In terms of time and money, how did this work out?  I would estimate that a visit to the Toyota dealership has a cost of about 2 hours, going and coming, although that time expenditure occurs during a work day.  The time cost of this particular DIY project was probably about 3 - 4 hours, but that was during down time.  If I had not had the false start with the first auto parts store, it would have been 2 to 3.  If the NAPA dealer had had the hood lifts as well as the battery, I would have been down to 1 to 2.  The cost of the parts were probably comparable.  The labor costs?  Much lower at the dealer, assuming my alternate use of that time would have been productive. 

On the other hand, it was fun and different to putter with the car.

A US Bailout of Puerto Rico?

Unlike the case with Detroit, it appears that the full faith and credit of the US backs Puerto Rico, because PR is a "commonwealth."

How to Get Government to Subsidize One's Favorite Charity (Updated the links.)

April 15 is next week.  Ugh.  However, a couple I know made a gift last year to their church, and the government will reimburse them this year a substantial portion of the value of their gift.  They could have paid the gift in cash and received part of that reimbursement.  Instead of paying cash to their charity, however, they made a donation of marketable securities (common stock in this case), securities that had appreciated in value between the time they purchased those securities and the time of their donation.  This increased the government's reimbursement.  Finally, the couple did not have to deal with a single government bureaucrat, but with people who liked them and wanted to serve them, the church treasurer, their accountant who prepared their tax return, and their stock broker.

The reimbursement from the government came in the form of the "tax benefits" that they will use this year with respect to the gift they made last year.  That is to say, they will pay less in income taxes next week than they would have paid had they not given the stock to their church.  The benefits arose from the application of two provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.

The first provision applies so that a gift of appreciated stock will avoid the income tax that the couple would have paid on the capital gain, had they sold the stock first and then donated the net cash proceeds of the sale.  The fair market value of the stock at the time of the gift to the church is the value of the gift that they may claim as a charitable deduction on their income tax return.  They are not required to offset that value by the tax they would have had to pay on the capital gain.

The second provision applies so that  the couple may deduct the value of their gift in computing their taxable income.

What is the extent of the government's reimbursement?  I do not have the couple's tax return to review, so I cannot tell you precisely.  But I can refer you to this discussion on the Fidelity Charitable website, to this discussion at that site and, finally, to this page where Fidelity Charitable will crunch the numbers for you.  (Incidentally, using Fidelity Charitable's  services for making charitable gifts greatly simplifies the process of obtaining the government's reimbursement.)

Turn Me Loose!

A very elderly man from our church, a man in his nineties, died earlier this week in the hospital after at least three weeks in intensive care. Not only was he sick, he had dementia. One week before he died, he went into cardiac arrest. The cart-team descended and brought him back, so he could live another week in a semi-comatose state, and finally die this week of pneumonia, the old person's friend. One more week of suffering in the cardiac-intensive care unit of a for-profit hospital. He had no insurance but Medicare.  That must have been enough.

Note to kin: I do have a place to go when I die - the body to a med school and the spirit for awhile asleep in the Lord (such sweet sleep) until he comes back, and I have a new body.  If I should suffer from dementia, the only treatment I want is from the poppy.  No feeding-tubes, no antibiotics, a little comfort care, and an audio book or Bach playing nearby.  Plus now and then a visit from my peeps.

We've Seen that Kind of Knife Before

Karambit.  From the film just out, "The Raid (2)"

Well, At Least This Lawyer Didn't Lie in Her Deposition.

An Atlanta in-house lawyer was jailed for 24 hours by a Georgia judge for contempt after she complained to him in an email about being selected for jury service in a personal injury case.
 
Wilma Elizabeth Beaty was also fined $500 by DeKalb State Court Judge Dax Lopez after she sent him the email. 

In the email, she said she would "blame" the plaintiff in the civil case for the work she would have to do on nights and weekends during the trial to keep up with her in-house job, says the Daily Report (sub. req.) in a lengthy article.

-from the ABA Journal's News Website, April 7, 2014

This is so outrageous that there must be something we don't know about these circumstances.  If true, however, I would say that if she is able to avoid disbarment, she gets off lightly.

Luther on What Makes a Good Preacher versus What the World Demands of a Good Preacher

First, a good preacher should be able to teach well, correctly, and in an orderly fashion.  Second, he should have a good head on his shoulders.  Third, he should be eloquent.  Fourth, he should have a good voice.  Fifth, he should have a good memory.  Sixth, he should know when to stop.  Seventh, he should be constant and diligent about his affairs.  Eight, he should invest body and life, possessions and honor in it.  Ninth, he should be willing to let everyone vex and hack away at him.  .  .  .

The world demands six qualities of a preacher:  1. that he have a good speaking voice; 2 that he be learned;  3.  that he be eloquent;  4. that he have a handsome exterior  .  .  . ;  5. that he take no money, but give money to preach;  6. that he say what they like to hear.

-as quoted in Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career (Fortress Press Edition 2003), pp. 249-250.

The Work of the Law. The Law as a "Spiegel"

Luther's picture of the human condition in the presence of God was bleak indeed.  But it was here [as a new professor of theology at Wittenberg] that he also began to develop a different understanding of humility from that which had filled his lectures on the Psalms.  He still saw this state of being utterly drained of self-worth as being necessary for salvation, but now he insisted that it was God himself who graciously taught and provided humility.  "The whole task of the apostle and his Lord is to humble the proud and bring them to a realization of this condition, to teach them that they need grace, to destroy their own righteousness, so that in humility they will see Christ and confess that they are sinners, and thus receive grace and be saved." [Footnote omitted]

Here was what Luther called the "proper" work of the law, which he often described as a hammer or an anvil that smashed down upon human pride and made room for God's love.  Luther loved plays on words and here chose to refer to the law by using the German word Spiegel.  God's law was a Spiegel (which could also mean "mirror") that reveals his human beings what they truly were – in need of grace.  Thus, when God was most terrifying and most righteous, he was in fact most gracious.  God's mercy was a loving hand with an iron fist.

-from Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and His Career, (Fortress Press edition, pp. 93 - 94).

"Though I desire to extend religious freedom, yet I want some recompense for my troubles."

So wrote William Penn, according to John Steele Gordon in a speech Gordon delivered in San Diego, California, November 15, 2013, at a Hillsdale College Free Market Forum.  An adaptation of that speech, entitled "Entrepreneurship in American History," is reproduced in the February 2014 edition of Imprimis, to which you can find your way through this link.

Gordon states that it "has not been nearly well enough noted that the American colonies, while many ended up in royal hands, were not founded by the English state.  Several, such as Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Virginia, were founded by profit-seeking corporations.  Others, such as Pennsylvania and Maryland, were founded by proprietors.  To be sure, many of these enterprises had non-entrepreneurial motives, such as providing a refuge for religious dissenters," but the founders sought "some recompense" for their "troubles."

Gordon writes further:

New York, of course, was founded by the Dutch, not the English, and profit was the sole reason for settling on Manhattan.  Indeed, so bent on moneymaking were the Dutch that they did not get around to building a church for 17 years, worshiping instead in the fort.  When they did finally build a church, they named it for St. Nicholas, and Santa Claus has been the patron saint of New York ever since.

God's common grace abounds through entrepreneurs, and he blesses a country that gives them the liberty to exercise their gifts.

Repent vs. Do Penance

Luther pointed out [in the  controversy over indulgences] that by working with Erasmus's edition of the Greek New Testament, he had discovered that Staupitz [the vicar general of the Augustinians for Germany and Luther's friend] had been right [in his emphasis of "the inclination of the heart rather than particular sins or particular good works as a determinant of the status of the soul"]and that common confessional practices had no basis in the Scriptures.  The Latin translation of Jesus' command at Matthew 4:17 read, "Do penance, for the kingdom of God is at hand."  But the Greek said, "Be penitent.  .  .  '"  Therefore God demanded not outward deeds but a changed heart and mind.  "Doing" had literally nothing to do with salvation, particularly with regard to indulgences.  "To repent" and "to do penance" were two different things.

-from Kittelson, Luther the Reformer: the Story of the Man and His Career. (Fortress Press edition 2003) at p. 113.

The Douay-Rhems 1899 American Edition continued to translate, "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

The New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition (NRSVACE), however, translates, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."

Kittleson's 1986 biography is a worthy successor to Bainton's, Here I Stand, a Life of Martin Luther, a 1950 work, but I would never, ever forgo the opportunity to read Bainton.

Ultralight Radios

Glenn Reynolds links to a story in the New Yorker magazine entitled The iPod of Prison.  The story is about a Sony portable radio in use in the prison systems, the SRF-39FP, and the usages and customs that have grown up around it. 

I have always had an eye on "ultralight" radios, and the New Yorker article refreshed that interest.  The article refers to what appears to be the main website that serves this topic, DXer.CA, "Canada's Original Radio Site", and this page on ultralight radios on that site.

The article also quotes Gary Debok, an authority on ultralight radio DX and, it so happens, a ham radio operator.  I found my way to two posts that Gary made to the eHam website.  I visited that site a lot when the K4JSU radio shack was up and running.

"Politics and the English Language"

Orwell's famous essay, which Mary introduced to me years ago, is simply a gem.  I return to it from time to time.  Orwell's particular recommendations about good writing are helpful and easy to remember.  His larger point, however, that the decline of written English connects to the rise of totalitarianism, continues to be important nearly 70 years after he made it.

As to Grace, it is all Common

According to Carl Bangs, Arminius held that

free will in man as sinner is "addicted to evil, and "it will not be bent to good except by grace."  Grace is as a form which brings into actuality the potentiality of the free will to goodness.  In a sinful man the free will is sufficient for only evil choices.  Thus Arminius says that "grace is present with all men [as a result of the work of Christ], by which their free will may be actually bent to good; but there is in all men such a will as is flexible to either side upon accession of grace."

That grace of which Arminius speaks is common grace, common to all, not "peculiar grace" or "special grace," as it might be applied to and limited to those whom God has predestined to receive it.  Arminius rejects a distinction between common and peculiar grace.  There is only common grace.  All men have the free will to accept Christ or not, free will in that respect only.

Predestination, as Arminius sees it, is simply this: God predestines those who have faith in Jesus Christ, those who have made the choice to believe, to constitute his elect.  This common grace of Arminius, then, sometimes referred to as "prevenient grace" (Bangs does not use that term), is available to everyone.  However, not everyone will exercise the will, now liberated by grace, to choose the good, that is to have faith in Christ.  Some will decide not to believe.  God has predestined those who choose not to have faith not to be among his elect.  We have then, conditional election.  Being part of the elect is conditioned on one deciding to believe.

Calvinists (Bangs would say "later" Calvinists), on the other hand, will not admit of any flexibility in the will bent to evil.  We are totally depraved.  (The "T" in Tulip.)  God's election, then, is not and cannot be conditioned on one's will, made free to choose by grace, making the choice of faith.  God's election is unconditional.  (The "U" in Tulip.)  Christ did not die to put everyone in a position to make a faith choice - or not.  Christ's atonement was limited to the unconditionally elect.  (The "L" in Tulip.)  Even to think about choosing requires God's grace, much less actually to make the choice to believe.  Furthermore, God's grace is irresistible as far as particular, chosen people are concerned.  (The "I" in Tulip.) Once grace is set upon us, like some hound of heaven it will get us, and we are as unable to resist it as we were to obtain it before God set loose his hound.  We cannot be just a little bit graced, graced just enough to make a choice.  It is all or it is nothing.  Because our will is not involved in our election, it cannot, after our being saved, be bent away from Christ.  As God's chosen we shall persevere in our blessed position.  (The "P" in Tulip.)

Hmmm.

Hard Physical Effort a Condition of Normalcy and a Demand of Design

Over and above any consideration of performance for sports, exercise is the stimulus that returns our bodies to the conditions for which they were designed.  Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard physical effort.

-Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength - Basic Barbell Training (3rd Ed. 2013),  p. 1.

Arminius and Good Works

Carl Bangs writes that in 1593, the enemies of Arminius accused him before the Consistory of Amsterdam  (something like our session) of three errors.  One of the alleged errors concerned Arminius' view of “works.”  He was accused of teaching that

too much could not be ascribed to good works, nor could they be sufficiently commended, provided no merit were attributed to them. 

At a hearing on the accusations, Arminius simply stood by that teaching.  The consistory cleared him of all three charges.  Bangs, Arminius - a Study in the Dutch Reformation, p. 143.

Johannes Cuchlinus: a Tough Man, during Tough Times, with a Tough Faith

Carl Bangs writes that Arminius

was ordained on Saturday evening August 27, 1588, in the Old Church, which was the center of church life in Amsterdam.  .  .  .  The long process of preparation was now at an end, and he was about to enter into the full exercise of his pastoral ministry in Amsterdam, a ministry that would run for fifteen years.

Arminius joined a staff of five other ministers, and Bangs gives us a profile of each of them.  One of them was Johannes Cuchlinus. 

He was the first pastor from the time of the Alteration [of Amsterdam, the Alterie, when in 1578 Reformed Services first began in that city], and he was the only German minister.  Three of his wives had died, and in 1587, he married an Amsterdam widow.  In another nine years he would marry his fifth and last wife, the sister of Arminius’ father, thus becoming Arminius uncle by marriage.  He was a Calvinist, but not of the new sort that would make so much trouble in later decades.  The Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism defined his faith, and he was not one to speculate on the order of decrees.  He was only forty-two years old, but in that time forty-two was a ripe old age, and Cuchlinus functioned as the senior minister of Amsterdam.

"Judaizers:" Where did that term come from?

The problem was that "the Galatian converts," Stott writes, "who had received [from the Apostle Paul] this gospel of grace , were now turning away to another gospel, a gospel of works.  The false teachers were evidently 'Judaizers', whose 'gospel' is summarized in Acts 15:1: 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.' "  Stott, The Message of Galatians (IVP 1968) at p. 22.

I wanted to track down the verb "Judaize" and focus on it as part of the lesson.  So I looked in my Strong's to see where Judaize appears in the KJV.  Nowhere.  So then, to my NIV concordance.  Not there either.  Then on to Biblegatway.com where I did a search for that word through the various English translations available at that helpful site.  I could not turn up a scripture reference where the word is used.  The word is not new to me.  I have known and understood that word for over 50 years, it is commonly used to describe the source of the problem that the reader encounters in Galatians and elsewhere in the NT, but  the word itself did not seem to be in the Bible.  Where did it come from.

I have The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971).  The editors approach to a given word is to identify the earliest written English source of its use, to provide a context-giving sentence fragment from that source that includes the word, then to follow with the next oldest source and fragment, and to the next, and so on.  (For a great read on the development of the OED see Winchester's  The Professor and the Madman.) 

Here is the OED's definition of Judaize and the earliest source and fragment for that definition:

To play the Jew; to follow Jewish customs or religious rites; to follow Jewish practice.  1582 N.T. (Rhem.) Gal. ii: 14. How doest thou compel the Gentiles to Iudaize?

A Judaizer, then, is someone who would force a Gentile to follow Jewish practice.  In the context of Galatians, the Judaizers were Jewish Christians who would compel Gentile Christians to follow Jewish customs.  Well, I knew that.  But what of that source, "Rhem."?

I recognized that word Rhem.  It refers to the Rheims-Douay Bible (1582-1610).  We Protestants are all about our English language Bibles, and fail to acknowledge that making the Bible accessible in English was part of the Counter-Reformation as well.  Bruce Metzger, in his The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions, writes that English Catholics, fleeing persecution by Queen Elizabeth, found refuge in Flanders.  In 1568, they established a seminary in Douay, where scholars "undertook, for the first time in the history of the Roman Church, to replace the available Anglican and Genevan Bibles - unacceptable from their point of view - with an English version of their own.  This project . . . was completed at Rheims in France to which city the college had transferred itself in 1578  .  .  .  "  (Metzger at pp. 67-68) Rhem., then, refers to the Rheims-Douay NT of 1592.

Metzger writes that the translation was made "not from the original languages but from the Latin Vulgate [and] was painstaking and reached a high standard of consistency, but was often too literal to be used in public worship.  There was a strong tendency to retain technical words  .  .   ."  Ah, like Judaize.

I think it ironic that Stott, an Anglican priest, adopts "Judaizers" as a term of art for the people troubling the Galatian Christians.  That word comes from the first Roman Catholic, English version of the Bible.  It was translated by scholars fleeing persecution because they were Roman Catholic, persecution by Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Anglican Church.   How many Protestants, who might look at Galatians narrowly as a sort of rebuke of the Roman Church, use that word, ignorant of its source?

Studying Galatians

In the adult Sunday School class that I teach, we have been using as our texts the small books written by N.T. Wright in the Paul for Everyone series, following the lead of Macon and Walter when they taught their Sunday School class at West Lake.  They started with Wright's study on Romans, and we followed, then to the Gospel of John, and now to Galatians.  With each of these studies, I used other commentaries and texts. I have been able  to acquire most of these other books in used editions at a reasonable cost through either  half.com and abebooks.com.  I buy the N.T. Wright texts new from Amazon, however.  At the end of a study, most of the students will give the Wright texts back to me, and I put them on half.com and recover about 40% of their cost.

To supplement the Galatians study, I am using Stott's The Message of Galatians in The Bible Speaks Today series published by Intervarsity Press.  I would use a Stott study as the main text, in preference to Wright's, in every case, but the IVP editions are more expensive than the Wright texts, and many of the people in the class pay for their class text.  Furthermore, Stott doesn't necessarily have a study for each book in the NT.

I am also using Luther's Commentary of the Epistle to the Galatians, which, according to Stott who quotes often from this commentary, is based on lectures delivered by Luther in 1531.  Amazon publishes a Kindle edition of this commentary and charges nothing for it.  I also have John Brown's An Exposition of Galatians, which Stott also cites from time to time.  John Brown was a Scottish minister, born in 1784, who "entered the University of Edinburgh at the age of 13, and in three session in the Arts faculty, gained such a command of Latin as to read it in like his mother tongue," according to the introduction in the reprint edition of this commentary published by Sovereign Grace Publishers in 1970.

Greenberry Jefferson Stokes

Later in life.

Go here for more details.

Whom does he resemble? Put your thumb under his nose and note the upper part of the face:  the large nose, deep set eyes, bushy brows, large head.

Bananas under Grave Threat

In Central America:

The government in Costa Rica, one of the biggest suppliers of the fruit, has already declared a “national emergency” over the state of its crop.

The country’s half-a-billion-dollar banana export industry has been hit by two separate plagues of mealybugs and scale insects, with up to 20 per cent of its produce written off.

Magda Gonzalez, the director of the agriculture ministry’s State Phytosanitary Services (SFE), told The Tico Times last week that climate change had boosted insect populations in recent years, making plagues increasingly likely across the world.

In Asia, Africa, Jordan, and Australia:

Meanwhile, a Scientific American report warned of a variant of banana-eating fungus which is currently threatening key plantations around the world.

Scientists believed the disease, caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp.cubense (Foc), was limited to parts of Asia and Australia. Yet it has now been found in Jordan and Mozambique, and in a new strain to which the vast majority of bananas are susceptible.

“It’s a gigantic problem,” said Rony Swennen, a breeder at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

-from Britain's The Independent, noted on the current Drudge Report, and brought to my attention by Carol.

Here's the link to the Scientific American report.

Meanwhile, we have two stalks currently on our trees, but our little grove is in grave need of some TLC.  I'll get on it.

The Bitter and the Sweet of Learning

1633 portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert by Rembrandt.

Arminius as a youth may have attended St. Jerome School [Sint Hieronymusschool] in Utrecht.  Carl Bangs connects him to that school because of his friendship with Johaness Uitenbogaert [Wtenbogaert], “who was to become a lifelong, intimate friend of Arminius.”  Bangs is certain Uitenbogaert attended that school.  Bangs writes:

Of his teacher [Cornelius] Lauerman, Uitenbogaert later said, “I still remember that the teacher often said to me and my fellow students that the root of study is very bitter to bite into but that the fruit is very sweet.”

-from Carl Bangs, Arminius– A Study in the Dutch Reformation, Second Edition (Frances Asbury Press 1985) p. 35

Timer to Turn on and Off an Outside Faucet

We have some plants outside that can't be reached by our current sprinkler system, and we hand- water them with the hose.  What do you do when you go out of town for a couple of days?  You first go to Home Depot and buy gadgets.  This time its a Melnor "Automatic [Digital] 1 Outlet Water Timer" (SKU 558-026) ($30) and an inexpensive Oscillating Sprinkler (SKU 619-344) ($7).  (I already have the hose.)

The timer unit is encased in a sturdy little plastic box, runs off two AA batteries (not supplied) and has an input port that fastens to the faucet and an output port to which the hose fastens.  Before installing the unit, however, one programs it - which is a snap, with some simple written instructions.  The unit has an LED screen to assist in the programing that is easy to read.  

When I first installed the unit, which I had programmed to be "off" but to turn on 15 minutes later for 30 minutes, the water poured through it when I turned on the faucet.  The instructions had a "trouble-shooting" chart, and the first thing on it was that problem.  The valves, the chart advised, may have come "open" during shipping.  Take out the battery holder, wait 30 seconds, and re-install.  I did that and then needed to slightly touch up the programming.  Back on the faucet it went, and no water ran through.  I installed the hose, fastened the sprinkler to the other end, and waited the 15 minutes.  Bingo.  Problem solved.

The timer is an elegant little work of applied technology.  The timer I bought was Melnor's basic digital timer product.  It makes more involved ones in its "Aqua-Timer" line.

Eight million dollar man

Associated Press/Photo by Brian Kersey

Zac Vawter

Zac Vawter’s right leg is a mechanistic marvel: Made of aluminum, it has a computer, two motors, and 13 sensors to measure movement or pressure, and weighs less than his left leg. For Vawter, who lost the bottom half of his right leg in 2009 after a motorcycle accident, walking comes as easy as thinking.

 

Too bad he’s not allowed to take the leg home just yet. The bionic leg is part of a project at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, funded by about $8 million from the Defense Department. Electrodes fitted to Vawter’s right thigh sense muscle movements associated with walking or bending an ankle, and read his intention to bend an ankle, walk, or climb stairs.

The smart leg, according to a September report in the New England Journal of Medicine, cuts falls and unnatural movements nearly in half, compared to regular prosthetics.

-from World Magazine's issue of 11-2-2013.

Here's the "preview" for the NEJM article to which World Mag refers.

Jay Leno's Interview of George and Laura Bush: Terrific and a Must-See

Ann Alhouse links to it here.

The Film "Pacific Rim" and Climate Change

I finally saw this movie, via Amazon, when the price finally dropped into the realm of reasonableness.  (Do people really pay $12.99 and above to watch a non-Prime Amazon movie?)

Inside all the fantastic photography and sympathetic characters and competent acting, the producers tuck a  climate change theme.  The aliens who climb out of the Pacific Rim and wreck havoc on the West Coast, are aliens who, millennia before, introduced the dinosaurs to our planet as a sort of guinea pig species.  Those creatures died out, however, because the atmosphere was not toxic enough.  So the aliens waited until humans polluted it to the extent that Earth is ready for them.  So here they come.

Please.

On the other hand, humans and their technology defeat the aliens in Act 3, using a nuclear device.

So what's the moral here?  Are humans and their polluting technology bad or are they good? Or do we have a mixed bag?  Or are the creators of the movie just sloppy or cynical?  I vote for sloppy.

Maybe we will find out in the inevitable sequel.  I sure hope del Toro is doing it.

The Bangs, Father and Son, the Dutch Reformation, the Pilgrims, and Jacobus Arminius.

The November - December edition of The University of Chicago Magazine, presents a profile of Jeremy Bangs, X'67, entitled "Going Dutch."  It not only introduces me to that gifted scholar,  but also to Leiden in the Netherlands, the Reformation as it took place in that country, and reintroduces me to the Pilgrims, "yes, those Pilgrims" as Lydialyle Gibson, the article's author, writes.  (What a beautiful name, Lydialyle.)

The article also introduces me to Jeremy's dad, Carl Bangs, PhD'58,

a church historian and theology professor, and an expert of the 16th-century Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius.  Carl Bang's biography, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (Abingdon Press), is a definitive text. 
 
Arminius!  But he was so wrong!  Isn't that just like a UChi scholar, picking such a subject to write about?

But over to Amazon, to look at that book.  Here's a great review:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Unique, Enlightening, and Rewarding Study (Especially for a Calvinist)., June 18, 2006

By 

Nelson Banuchi "atdCross" (Concord, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arminius: A study in the Dutch Reformation (Paperback)

Mr. Bangs presents a very systematic and, sometimes, personally affective account of James Arminius. Not only does he present Arminius objectively as a pastor, theologian,and professor but also a few yet essential insights of a man who has had his share of sorrow.

I was warned many years ago not to read this book. I was told by Calvinist-leaning individuals that it would upset my faith and cause me to fall away. I have read this book 5 times and filled it with highlighting and notations. Apparently, the one who warned me never read the book. And I think that is a big problem with those who adhere to Calvinism when discussing issues regarding election and predestination. I would encourage every Calvinists to read this book not for the purpose of changing their view but to understand what Arminius really taught as, it seems, many books by Calvinist theologians misrepresent terribly the teachings Arminius espoused. To call him a heretic is to be wholy misinformed or uninformed about the man Arminius and his teachings.

Reading "Arminius" has helped me to understand the significance of Arminianism, it's value and importance in Christian theology, the essential issues that divide two camps of believers (one, Calvinism, and the other, Arminianism), and it has provided me with an alternative (and better, in my estimation) understanding of certain "problem" texts in the Bible.

Most important of all, to me, it has brought me closer to a man after my own heart; a man who knows the pain of lose, still trusts in God, and seeks to present God in a way that makes Him available for all sinners to embrace in repentance and faith.

I highly recommend reading this book. If you do not, you will miss a very important phase in Christian history. It has gotten to a point that when I'm going to my study to read this book and his "Works", I tell my wife I'm going to spend some time with my best friend.

Buy it, read it, you won't regret it.

Also, read "The Works of James Arminius", London Edition, 3 vols. So far, I've read all volumes three times. It is a little difficult to read at first, but once you get use to how it is written, you'll find it very rewarding.

Now, over to half.com, to find a $6.00 "Acceptable" copy on sale (although,you never know just what you are going to get with "Acceptable" - other than a real bargain).  Can't wait to read it.

The reviewer quoted above, Mr. Banuchi, writes that he "read 'The Works of James [Jacobus] Arminius', London Edition, 3 vols.  .  .  . three times"!  There are editions of those works at Amazon in Kindle Editions.  Here is volume 1 of the edition published by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library ("CCEL").  CCEL's website is worth exploring.

Luther, the Wedding at Cana, the Three Estates, the Three Wonders, and Marriage

On January 10th, 1529, the lesson was the wedding at Cana of Galilee.  This passage, said Luther, is written in honor of marriage.  There are three estates: marriage, virginity, and widowhood.  They are all good.  None is to be despised.  The virgin is not to be esteemed above the widow, nor the widow above the wife, any more than the tailor is to be esteemed above the butcher.  There is no estate to which the Devil is so opposed as to marriage.  The clergy have not wanted to be bothered with work and worry.  They have been afraid of a nagging wife, disobedient children, difficult relatives, or the dying of a pig or a cow.  They want to lie abed until the sun shines through the window.  Our ancestors knew this and would say, "Dear child, be a priest or nun and have a good time."  I have heard married people say to monks, "You have it easy, but when we get up we do not know where to find our bread."  Marriage is a heavy cross because so many couples quarrel.  It is the grace of God when they agree.  The Holy Spirit declares there are three wonders: when brothers agree, when neighbors love each other, and when a man and wife are at one.  When I see a pair like that, I am as glad as if I were in a garden of roses.  It is rare.

-from Bainton's Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther, (Abingdon Press; 1950) p. 352.

Luther and Congregational Singing

[Martin Luther's] last and greatest reform of all was in congregational song.  In the Middle Ages the liturgy was almost entirely restricted to the celebrant and the choir.  The congregation joined in a few responses in the vernacular.  Luther so developed this element that he may be considered the father of congregational song.  This was the point at which his doctrine of the priesthood of all believers received its most concrete realization.  This was the point and the only point at which Lutheranism was thoroughly democratic.  All the people sang.  Portions of the liturgy were converted into hymns: the Creed and the Sanctus.  The congregation sang not "I believe," but, "We believe in one God."  The congregation sang how the prophet Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up and heard the seraphim intone Holy, Holy, Holy.

-from Bainton's Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther, (Abingdon Press; 1950) p. 344.

Goodby Gatsby, Hello Common Core

For high school [Miami-Dade County Public School] English teachers like [Chris] Kirchner, Common Core is prompting consequential and contentious changes in what students read and how the books are taught: The new standards call for a focus on depth over breadth, more challenging readings, and increased emphasis on nonfiction.

Students will be expected to make written arguments using specific evidence from reading assignments, often pulling together examples from multiple texts. No longer should teachers ask students to write solely based on their personal experience or opinion — arguing for or against school uniforms, for instance.

“It’s encouraged me to give up some practices I had a great allegiance to,” says Kirchner, “specifically, the teaching of whole novels.” -from this morning's print edition of the Miami Herald. The entire article, written by reporter Sarah Carr, is well worth reading.

I remember how much I enjoyed it when my high school English teacher, Ms. Campion, would throw out big, open-ended questions about Gatsby and the class would discuss and argue their answers.  It was so much fun, and it encouraged wide reading.

Read more here: http://www.momsmiami.com/2013/10/18/3696938/good-bye-gatsby-hello-common-core.html##storylink=cpy

Luther, through Bainton, on Vocation

In one respect Luther was more conservative than Catholicism because he abolished monasticism and thus eliminated a selected area for the practice of the higher righteousness.  In consequence the gospel could be exemplified only in the midst of secular callings, except that Luther refused to call them secular.  As he had extended the priesthood of all believers, so likewise he extended the concept of divine calling, vocation, to all worthy occupations

Our expression "vocational guidance" comes directly from Luther. God has called men to labor because he labors.  He works at common occupations.  God is a tailor who makes for the deer a coat that will last for a thousand years.  He is a shoemaker also who provides boots that the deer will not outlive.  God is the best cook, because the heat of the sun supplies all the heat there is for cooking.  God is a butler who sets forth a feast for the sparrows and spends on them annually more than the total revenue of the king of France.  Christ worked as a carpenter  .   .   .

-from Bainton, Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther (Apex Books 1950), pp. 232-233

Of course, I know this doctrine and embrace it.  But I did not get it from the pulpits I sat under, and I have sat under a lot of them. Here's more on this from Bainton:

The Virgin Mary worked, and the most amazing example of her humility is that after she had received the astonishing news that she was to be the mother of the Redeemer, she did not vaunt herself but went back and milked the cows, scoured the kettles, and swept the house like any housemaid. Peter worked as a fisherman and was proud of his skill, though not too proud to take a suggestion from the Master when he told him to cast on the other side.    Luther commented:

"I would have said, 'Now look here, Master.  You are a preacher, and I am not undertaking to tell you how to preach.  And I am a fisherman, and you need not tell me how to fish.'  But Peter was humble, and the Lord therefore made him a fisher of men."

The shepherds worked.  They had a mean job watching their flocks by night, but after seeing the babe they went back.

"Surely that must be wrong. We should correct the passage to read, 'They went and shaved their heads, fasted, told the rosaries, and put on cowls.'  Instead we read, 'The shepherds returned.'  Where to? To their sheep. The sheep would have been in a sorry way if they had not."

Chicken nuggets: Please don't feeed them to my grandchildren.

Through a laboratory testing of chicken nuggets from two unnamed major national fast-food chains in Jackson, University of Mississippi researchers found that they contained just 40 to 50 percent meat, the remaining  50 to 60 percent comprised of bits of chicken-by-products such as fat, skin, connective tissues, blood vessels, nerve tissues, organ parts and ground bone fragments.

More here, including a video interview of the researcher.