September 2002 Archives

asp comments working?  Try the link.....guess not

try fixing the path.....must be something about the code below.......

In the homepage template Head section:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function aspcomments(n) {
window.open('/aspcomments/aspcomments.asp?blogid=' + n, 'aspcomments' + n, 'directories=0,height=600,width=500,location=0,resizable=1,scrollbars=1,toolbar=0');
}
-->
</SCRIPT>

Anybody got an idea on what I need to change to make this work with radio?  I put the below link in the line below the radio comment macro in the Item template: <%commentLink%><br>

<A HREF="javascript:aspcomments(<$BlogItemNumber$>)">comments [<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript" SRC="aspcomments/aspcomments.asp?blogid=<$BlogItemNumber$>&count=1"></SCRIPT>]</A>

 

 

The domain theoblogical.org  is now active.    All of the messages posted under mywebpages.comcast.net are also at theoblogical.org,  and I will begin posting at theoblogical.org,,  so switch your subscriptions and blogroll links (replace "mywebpages.comcast.net" with "theoblogical.org" and you're set!  I will be notifying blogs4God,  eatonweb, and others tomorrow.  I will check Google for references to "mywebpages.comcast.net/dature" and notify folks.  mywebpages.comcast.net/dlature will stay put for quite a while,  only I won't be updating there after today(but I'll copy my rss files to those directories so updates and notices will get a chance to get noticed.

If anyone out there has any suggestions/advice for me on good ways to get things re-addressed and notifications to happen,  let me know!  I'm still learning!  Thanks for reading and commenting.  I feel a bit of a rush,  seeing that domain name instead of "users.someprovider.net/dlature". 

Martin's Radio Blog Flow

comcast is back up,  but I will be setting up www.theoblogical.org hopefully in the next few hours (not working yet,  waiting for it to propogate).  I wish I could edit that parking page so that I could redirect users to the actual site until I notice it's up and get it switched over to point at the IP address....

Mob Rule
By Mark Frauenfelder, Sep 27 2002

An interview with Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs, a book about the next social revolution.

www.theoblogical.org is purchased and will be in effect sometime in the next 24 hours!   Cool!

Anybody have any suggestions/advice for how I might best make the switch and inform subscribers (besides the one obvious thing here,  which is subscribers reading this when they pull it from my rss.xml subscription)?

I am certainly interested in keeping the Google hits coming.  I seem to get a good deal of hits from Google searches on various things.  

nathan_lott__

an online column examining
politics and culture today

Nathan wrote an email and invited me to check things out.   Looks like I'll be doing that. 

Martin blogged this a couple of weeks ago:

My response: a view on God's revelation across cultures. [Dale Lature: Theoblogical]
I like this piece that Dale puts together.
4:53:14 PM Comment [0]
Checkout what Google suggests:
Values & Goals | About | Vancouver School of Theology America: Theology for Teens - Adolescents' values and aspirations ... Core Beliefs, Values, Theology Team Latin American bishops looking at theology from indigenous values Latin American bishops looking at theology from indigenous values

Anybody know these guys? http://ez-domainnameregistration.com I'm looking for the best way to register myself.

Is there anything with RSS and News Aggregation and/or syndication that will help me in my quest to move my blog to another address and direct people who find my old address to the new,  and people who subscribe to one of my RSS channels can get notified?

This sucks.   Nobody is going to see this tonight ,  because comcast has locked me out of the ftp account where I upload my blog pages (mywebpages.comcast.net/dlature). Makes me really wish I had gotten in on the Salon blog deal (which started within a month after I bought Radio).  Radio, WS_FTP, IE, Dreamweaver,   all FAIL to connect.  I need to figure out how to get this stuff moved and notices sent out.  How does one do this?  How do you move a blog ,  and keep what piddly-little connections (which are all valuable to me as I seek to build a small inter-blogular community).  HOw do I get all those wonderful Google hits to start reflecting a new location?  I am going to move my stuff to a larger,  more robust web hosting area.  Instead of mywebpages.comcast.net/dlature,  this is (as you know,  else you wouldn't even be here....)

What I really want is www.theoblogical.org.  Wonder what the woud be the best things to do to get me there?
(Later:  I bought the domain name,  and now just waiting for it to propogate)

John Niehas (of First Things) on NPR Friday night talked about "just war",  and he thinks Iraq is a "just cause" because it is "defensive" in the sense that Iraq has "aggression" underway.  I have questions about that,  not that Saddam is most likely plotting something evil,  because I can't dismiss that.  I just caution against hasty action.  There seems to be time to get all the parties involved. 

Niehas , in his discussion of what constitutes "just war",  zeroes in on how "defense" is considered one of the criteria for "just war".  I do not advocate INACTION,  but proactive steps to ascertain the probablity of real and immanent threat,  and to bring the force of international consensus and pressure upon their "renewal" of compliance,  and even impose more "stringent" and "urgent" requirements.

I am not unconvinced that Saddam should not be watched.......I'm sure he should be.....I am just not persuaded that military attack is the right next step at this moment.....I'm not too trusting of the U.S. tactics in carrying out these strikes.

A great blog from Eric Blair (slactivist):

CORPORATE STRATEGY: A PROGRESSION.

1. If it doesn’t get measured, it doesn’t get done.

2. If it doesn’t produce a measurement, it doesn’t get done.

3. If it doesn’t involve measuring, it doesn’t get done.

4. If it’s not measuring, it doesn’t get done.

5. Nothing gets done except for measuring.

6. The undone is immeasurable.

7. We are immeasurably undone.

This site has very cool tabs for navigation, that use rollovers to display sublinks. Very cool. I must investigate

I've been less diligent in the past couple of years in my perusal of WIRED when it arrives at my mailbox.  A couple of nights ago,  I noticed the article on Lessig in the back of the issue.  And it's online , too.  Comments forthcoming (or not).

Once a "right-wing lunatic," he's become a fire-breathing defender of Net values.

<%radio.macros.imageref ("images/lessig.jpg")%> Ian White Lawrence Lessig

In late 1997, after reading a profile of the super-brainy professor in the Harvard Law Bulletin, Judge Jackson had tapped Lessig to sort out the technical aspects of the case. "He was as knowledgeable as they come," says Jackson, who sits on the US District Court in DC. For the next two months, Lessig and his overqualified clerk, fellow Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain, worked almost nonstop to produce a report. Lessig's time logs, which document the 278 hours he spent on the case (billed at $250 per hour, a bargain rate for someone with his credentials), reveal only one day off: Christmas. Some days he clocked 11 hours. What the logs don't show is the quiet transformation Lessig had been undergoing, from a respected constitutional theorist into a fire-breathing defender of Net values. With the Microsoft case, he would be able to make his mark. ....

In His Steps Online Book

Remembering two inspirational stories from my early Chrsitian days: My Heart, Christ's Home,  and In His Steps (which inspired the "What Would Jesus Do?" aka WWJD thing).  It is so glaring to me today how both those stories so totally embody a "compartmentalization" of Jesus away from "life in the world".......that the question rarely gets asked in regards to say, the question of war against Iraq;   like "Would Jesus lead a pre-emptive strike against Iraq,  or even encourage us to be supportive of it?" 

Iggie makes a good point :

I have been thinking a lot about Napster,Morpheus,and these other file sharing and peer to peer programs. They are organic. They are like a web of interconnected friends who link up to meet each others needs without anyone in charge. Each person filling anothers need. Another meeting the need of another. Isn't this is what church is supposed to be all about? Why have we fallen so short? The Church instead of using the resources of the people of God have sold out. | from Iggy

» Table of Contents: The chapters of Smart Mobs, including summaries of each chapter and weblog entries for that chapter. » Book Summary: A summary of the book » Reviews and Articles: Links to outside evaluations of the book. » Appearance Schedule: See Howard Rheingold in your area discussing the book and it's implications. » Bibliography: Information about further reading of the information used in the creation of Smart Mobs.

"After stewing in the juices of virtual community and watching the emergence of various social networks over the last decade, Howard Rheingold thought hard about what he was seeing and came up with the concept of the smart mob. "Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation. The impacts of smart mob technology already appear to be both beneficial and destructive..." Howard sees a revolution and a rich field for innovation in the proliferation of digital technologies and the rapid free flow of information, but entrenched interests are trying to constrain new technologies in order to protect their interests. "

I guess I need to go looking for some UK logos and backgrounds for my sports page and be content to wait for College Basketball to start,  becuase the Titans absolutely SUCK.   They lost to Dallas last week,  who got thrashed for the second time in three games,  and then they lose AT HOME to CLEVELAND,  blowing a 14-point lead with 5 minutes left,  and it only took Cleveland about 4 minutes to go 65 yards and kick a field goal to win in overtime,  after tying the game on an onside kick where NO Titans were anywhere close to the ball.   The titans got 188 yards in TOTAL offense.  They won't even win this pathetic division.  Horrible.   For the second year in a row.  I'm so tired of Jeff Fischer and his pathetic offensive "plan". 

There's no "escape" in Titans football this year.

The Reds also closed out their Riverfront Stadium/ Cinergy Field history by getting swept by Philadelphia,  and pretty much sewed up a sub-500 season.  Great American Ballpark, here we come.  Hopefully,  Ken Griffey Jr. will have a healthy year and I hope a relatively injury-free remainder of his career,  and give himself a shot at 700-plus homeruns.  

When it gets closer to late fall,  I 'll be interested enough in basketball to start looking at who they have and what the season will look like in 2002-3. 

The connectedness of us all,  and our deepest dreams, I believe,  is addressed in this segment:

"What makes it a web is the fact that it has links. That's quite literally what turned the Internet into the Web. But every link says, "Here's something I care about. Maybe you will, too. So, go away from my page and go visit this other page." Every link is a small act of generosity, of selflessness. And that's what I understand human spirituality to be about, at least to a large degree. Thus, the Web's architecture is spiritual." from "The spirituality of the web's architecture" with David Weinberger -  chat transcript on Spirituality.com

The things which move us and inspire us motivate us to share the excitement.  This is closely related to a key element in my Theology of Church:  that we all have 'gifts' given to us by God;  and these gifts are meant for the enhancement of the community;  specifically,  for the community's mission to some segment of the world.  If we could latch onto this, somehow,  and take much more seriously the architecture of the Web and how it is INVITING us to fill its space with examples of this 'sharing',  there would be many more ministries birthed as people discover kindred spirits via the Net that may well be somebody sitting next to them in Church.

David Weinberger posts on JOHO today:

Spirituality chat: "The transcript of a chat I did at spirituality.com on the topic "The Spirituality of the Web's Architecture" has been posted here. 10:28 PM | PermaLink "

This is promising of many various blog-spirations for me.   I feel the end of a blogless funk arriving.  This area is where the Web's connection into "getting us connected to the Clue-giving character of the web' and the "Need to get that clue from inside the theological  community" meet.    Thanks again Mr. Weinberger.

I'll be posting these upcoming blogs to my "Theoblogical" section in the hours ahead.  

Ken Blogs:

Three columns!. Well, I've been playing with the style sheet and templates and I've been able to introduce a third column to... [JoKeR's Blog]

I subscribed to ya , man!  What did you set up your Movable type on?  (What kind of machine and OS?) I'm envious.  I was not patient (or knowledgeable enough with PERL) to get anything working. I had tried setting up ActivePERL on WinXP,  but was never able to do it.

I'll be watchin' now.  Thanks for lettin' me know via Ecunet!

I agree with Tim here , too.   And yes,  it is sad.

"The truth is that without a milieu of war, the conservative church does not have much to say. They are reactionary without a progressive agenda. They are best at warmongering -- and lost otherwise. I fear September 11 just gave them something to say -- most of which I disagree with strangely!"

I feel strongly here about this,  since having the Southern Baptist fiasco witch-hunt of the mid to late 80's -early 90's,  where the battle cry was to rid the denomination's leadership of the dangerous liberals (and along with them,  many of the "moderates" who may well not be liberal but nevertheless opposed to making certain theological beliefs a "litmus test".  I describe a bit of my experience with this in "The Southern Baptist Convention"

Other themes in harmony with what Tim describes in  Islam Hijacked

I like it:

Tim at e-church:

"Church Sites Would it not be amazing if the (or any) church had a secure, private Intranet where it could centralize information and communications to its members. This could transform the idea of church from just influencing us on Sundays -- to being a daily destination/relationship with our church family."

Good stuff, Tim. I absolutely agree, and do we not think our "business" every bit as worthy (actually, more) as companies with "IntraNets", which are built to serve the planning, strategizing, and Knowledge Management needs of their organizations? We in the church need to use tools to help us at our tasks as well. I certainly see a church community having its tentacles into the ether, to enable all the "mobile" on-the-fly scheduling, reminders, online "support groups" etc. that are private in nature.

 

IN this post on Sunday I blogged one of Ron Lusk's entries,  but I neglected to notice that he was quoting,  and made it look like Ron had said it.  He corrected me

Ron's original blog (my title): Infoweek Column Disses KM via Weblogs. From Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog
The subject of the blog: CIO article on Blogging. 

Richard Gayle of Man with a Ph.D.wrote:

Got the link from The FuzzyBlog!].

What a crock. One of the big ideas about the combination of weblogs with aggregators is that you only get information about blogs that YOU decide are interesting, not the writer.

Everyone needs to find hours per week to stay current. But, if people subscribe to newsfeeds for the journals, a single reader can filter out the relevant articles and post them to their weblog. I subscribed to over 50 newsfeeds for biology journals. I could browse over 300 articles in less than 1 hour, posting the important ones to my blog to be read later. That is right. Browse and make posts. I could then link to the article when I had the time. It was incredibly efficient, especially compared to reading each journal TOC individually. Others could then get to the important new literature quickly.

John Robb posts a response to this guy who wrote the article that Ron Comments on here
(09/18/02 7am) so this should say , instead,  the article that Richard Gayle comments on here. Link below.

Sorry, Dale, but I snagged this one from Richard Gayle [Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog]

Has anybody asked about creating subcategories in Radio?  With an XML structure,  this is possible, No?  And if the Calendar function that is used to find archived postings is also XML,  then why can't a calendar also be used for something like,  uh.... calendaring....in other words, scheduling?  The reason I ask is because such features would make building a Church Weblog so ideal for creating a Church site. 

I could foresee being able to post to a Weblog ,  and fill in a calendar using things like "Radio to the Past" and "Radio to the Future".   If a category were set up named "calendar",  and posts to the "calendar" category would be posted by date just as all posts are now,  then any day selected would,  as it does now,  bring up the page of posts for that day.  If Calendar category posts consist of descriptions of that event,   with "Titles" for Each post for that day (using the Post Title feature that one can turn on or off in Radio,  allowing one to assign a title and a link for every post,  and the default link is the permalink URL for that post,  then there is a way to list posts to that date in the calendar section by Time of Day assigned to that event.

I'm going to start setting up a "ChurchBlog" section with a "ChurchCal" for a ChurchCalendar,  and using RadioTothePast  plus RadioToThe Future to post to it,  experiment with how a ChurchBlog might work.

Something also interesting:  The link to the original report found by the Sunday Herlad that was included in David Weinberger's blog is now dead.  

The cached page on Google shows a listing for the same document:
Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century

Just moments after I posted the below post,  I see this post by David W. 

"Chip forwards a link to what may be an important article in the Sunday Herald that claims that the "regime change" in Iraq is part of a larger plan put together by Bush's cronies before he took office: Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President ........ 9:10 AM | PermaLink "

If this is the case,  that is truly scary.  But then,  I thought it was scary before the election,  realizing who the new Bush administration was (which is,  a lot of the OLD Bush administration),   and some even worse things. 

I did a "Radio Express" thing on David W.'s post just after posting my "To oust Saddam or what?" post,  brought on by seeing the Salon post.  I expressed my immediate reactions,  posted the "but what if we can topple Saddam without war" suggestion, pointed to how the UN may be the right route,  but then considering the kind of rhetoric Bush and the administration has been using,  wondered if this weren't just a "public face" to get approval for something that is going to be done anyway.   I go back to my News Aggregator and skim down further,  and there's David W.'s post about the article in the Sunday Herald........I think I just swung far in the direction of mistrust again,  and a great uncertainty about the direction these guys are taking us. 

There seems to be many elements here to debate.  One,  why is "Peace" and Not seeking to "topple" Sadamm mutually exclusive?  One might qualify this and point out that there are ways to "topple" without military coersion,  like the paths being sought now (at least on the surface....although I have a fairly certain suspicion that the U.N. is just one protocol that is being used to achieve what the US wants to do anyway.  We'll see.   Bush was saying "Sadamm has defied the UN not once,  not twice,  but SIXTEEN times.  So,  what was the US doing about that on numbers 3-16?  Seems a lot like it's much more "convenient" now to bring that up to the UN now that we have some scheme that we're gonna implement no matter what.

Why American Jewish groups support war with Iraq. Usually allied with liberal causes, many American Jews support toppling Saddam Hussein. If there's a peace movement, it will have to get started without them. [Salon.com]

Tell 'em John!
Title:		Weblogs
From:		John Robb
Date:		12-Sep-02 1:06 AM GMT

Herbert,

Don't confuse weblogs with "blogs". What a teenager does on blogger.com is very different from what a corporate weblogger does at work on an Intranet. In fact, most of the abuse you see in the use of e-mail and IM doesn't appear on corporate weblogs because they are on the Intranet for all to see. Why? Because e-mail and IM are done in secret.

There is so much more I could write about this, but it is clear that you haven't seen a corporate weblog network in action.

From Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog

CIO article on Blogging. Got the link from The FuzzyBlog!].

What a crock. One of the big ideas about the combination of weblogs with aggregators is that you only get information about blogs that YOU decide are interesting, not the writer.

Everyone needs to find hours per week to stay current. But, if people subscribe to newsfeeds for the journals, a single reader can filter out the relevant articles and post them to their weblog. I subscribed to over 50 newsfeeds for biology journals. I could browse over 300 articles in less than 1 hour, posting the important ones to my blog to be read later. That is right. Browse and make posts. I could then link to the article when I had the time. It was incredibly efficient, especially compared to reading each journal TOC individually. Others could then get to the important new literature quickly.

John Robb posts a response to this guy who wrote the article that Ron Comments on here

"Jesus and The Kingdom of God" is some thought about what David Weinberger and I talked about last week regarding theological differences/similarities between Judaism and Christianity.

So,  what is it when one moves toward putting too much emphasis on,  or "worshipping" ones' own blogs? Blogolatry?

so , extending on the "blog-alia" term I spontaneously blurted out in the previous entry,  if that refers to "blogging" on about the Church or on Church-related topics in a way only a died-in-the-wool blogging enthusiast would understand (and thus in need of "translation" to the laity or uninitiated,  what would it be called when blogging goes on and on about nothing?  Blogorea?  (I may have seen that somewhere--- but I thought I'd share that with you.  Gee , Thanks, Dale! Right?

From e-church:

Intranets, Extranets, and Blogs. Dale Lature sums up my feelings in his entry:Getting a Clue in Church about the Web. He not only critiques church web sites but also gives good solid advice on how to actually pull it off.... [e-church com.munity weblog]

The only thing is that I haven't actually achieved it yet,  since I'm still at the "seeking support" stage.  We need to have access to a server that will enable us to post multiple blogs (like Radio's rcs) and the backing of the people who see the value and consider it important enough as an audience.  That seems to be very slow in coming.  But ,  I won't give up on it.  Whether or not my family stays as members there (which we've been mulling over,  mainly due to the feeling that we want our 13 year old son to be going to church with at least some of the people he knows in school.  Going downtown to church makes that an unlikely scenario here, since we live 15 miles southeast in  secluded suburbia. 

I have been toying with mail to weblog features today,  and having another online group I interact with (also church related) to a special category I have set up using Radio.  I have also set up a category for my church.  What I REALLY need now is sub-categories, and ways to set up separate mail-to security so that mail can be sent to any of the subcategories,  like public contacts for different ministries,  sermon archives (which would be posted as Stories in Radio),  Youth Ministry (with its own subcategories).  Since this is all done in XML,  doesn't it seem technically possible to tweak this architecture for churches?  It seems that also users could be set up with different access levels so that members could "post their own blog" to public interaction areas,  but only ministry contact people assigned to "blog the ministry" of that group could be given access to blog copy for the descriptions and calendars for that group?  The church office could administer the calendar for all groups and church-wide events,  and eventually all this Instant Message posting,  PDA-enabled posting,  etc. could enter into the equation and create a truly "blogged" Church. 

As I see it,  the same reasons that people have for being enthued about the KM (Knowledge Management) functions of weblogging can be similar reasons for church people to be excited about blogging.  Even more so, actaually,  since some businesses can do just fine without KM as a strategy,  while churches ,  in order to be what the Church is,  HAVE to enable KM,  because it is a simple point of theology that seems to be lost in so many churches:  the church's mission is to enable mission (this is an emphasis of and modus operandii of The Church of the Saviour).  In other words,  the people are called by God to gather together IN ORDER TO DERIVE their call.  God constantly calls.  (Because the world constantly changes,  and needs arise that need our help.  For me ,  it has to be something to do with helping the Church awaken to the communication tools available to it,  and specifically , today,  in this whole weblog/Web Service/coming "Smart Mob" era.  There is a structure to the "Weblog tool set" that encourages and "reveals" the things of its writers which really light a fire under them (and so I blog as I learn and as I see what is emerging in this as a ripe opportunity for the Church.

Thanks e-church (and Tim) for stirring me to more "blog-alia"   Now what we need is more "translators" of this brand of "glossolalia" so that movement can happen on making this happen.

ecunet test this one

I keep having a problem with this. (Now fixed....it seems) It keeps posting to my home page.(my script was written over when I reinstalled Radio....whoops)   before: I keep having to move it using the Radio editor and the category assignment checkbox.   I guess that is not ready for prime time.(But maybe it's me that's not ready).....  I need to keep looking until someone has a solution.  My problem may be that I am always loading the www and DataFiles back and forth between home and work (and recently also the Tools folder). (that turned out to be part of it)  I move those as well since the files in Tools seem to be getting updated each time.  

Another for the future blogroll for Dreamweaver Blogs

another for the Web Development Page

Matt Brown's Dreamweaver Blog --  anybody found a tool to easily add other sites to a blogroll?  I want to build blogrolls that deal with stuff in each of my categories,  particularly ones like this one dealing with my work issues,  most of which deal with using Dreamweaver on sites I am responsible for creating, fixing,  adding functionality,  etc.  

This is a peev of mine, too , Dave.  People at work have kids who do "LiveJournal" stuff,  and they keep telling everybody in meetings where I am mentioning Blogging that it's "like keeping an online journal",  and I keep saying,  "it can be,  but I'm talking about much more than that".

"There's a particularly thoughtful article by Renee Tawa about blogging and Journalism in the LA Times today. Best of all: Not a word about "teenagers writing about what they had for breakfast." "

Blog Template Dreamweaver Tutorial Up at The Screen Savers Site. My taped appearance is this coming Monday, September 16, but TSS has already put the online tutorial component up at their site. The tutorial covers a little more ground than we were able to get to in my segment. On the air, I basically just show how to edit colors and fonts in an existing template, but the tutorial also addresses making custom templates, integrating a blog into an existing site design, and building a blog template from scratch. I'm just back from New York last night, so wading through a bit of a backlog in several arenas. [Christian Crumlish (xian): metablog]

Calendar Component Examples.

Some developers are having problems understanding how the Calendar component works (thread), so i put together a couple of simple examples that show how to use the component.

The first example shows how to work with a single selected date, and the second shows how to work with multiple selected dates.

You can download the files here.

If you know of any other examples online, please post them in the comments.

[mesh on MX]

Tim of e-church expresses a prayer of many seekers after unity:

"The problem is that I fear many churches -- instead of preaching grace -- will cultivate misunderstandings of Islam. I hope our services this week reflect the nature of the gospel more than our nationalism. I hope that pastors will use this opportunity to challenge our unilateralism, prejudices, and hatred. Instead, I fear, pulpits will be used to reinforce these attitudes -- giving them a spiritual dimension. A great opportunity for growth will be lost."

It saddens me that more churches,  especially now,  are not emphasizing a movement to appreciate the spirituality of Islam (the Islam that its most dedicated adherents want us to know,  not the Islam used by those who would use it to their own ends of revenge and thirst for power).   It befuddles me that conservative churches are somehow afraid of highlighting some real spirtual values of Islam--- they fear that people will be converted to Islam in one sitting,  or in a short study series?  What does that say about our confidence in the faith we have supposedly instilled in our members?  Perhaps if they would seek conversion to Islam,  it would tell us what need is being addressed there which we are not addressing. 

For me,  the movement of God is universal,  and always has been.  People of different times and different cultures,  surrounded by a particular cultural and physical environment,  perceive the movement of the spirit and seek to understand it using the archetypes and mythologies that are passed on to them.  Huston Smith's World Religion book (which Bill Moyers made into a series) was such a good "survey",  and from the perspective of a American Christian Methodist,  was moved enough by some of his discoveries of the why and how of diverse relgious practices,  that he brought some of them home with him.  Some consider this "syncretistic" and therefore blasphemous.  They only have to look deeper into the history of various groups in Chrisgtian history to find fellow travelers who used accomodated some of the same practices into their own Christian pilgrimage.

This is my favorite T-Shirt and daughter, Kelli (4), from the post I put up on Labor Day, Sept.2. Janet asked me today if I was going to wear my "Citizen of the World" shirt, and I said, "Yeah, that woudl be good." On a day like today, when it's nothing but "Let's remember by flying the flag and USA this and USA that, let's remember that this is not about one country or another, but about global relationship problems. BIG problems. Revving up "patriotic" engines is part of what throws salt in the wound. I'm not saying that anything about Sept.11 was deserved or was punishment or anything like a "lesson". It's just that if we don't care what salt we are heaving into whatever wounds,  then perhaps we don't really care to try and figure out some realistic ways to avoid such violent backlashes in the future.   It was evil. Part of my response is to affirm the interdependence of the world's people.

"My way or the highway" approach to Biblical interpretations (something I have seen all too often in my earlier days as a Southern Baptist) is something AKMA addresses in his "hermeneutics" offerings

IN this link, AKMA asks:

"Christianity offers too many examples of "our way or the highway" interpretations of Scripture, but aren't those schismatic gestures warranted, if not outright required, by a rigorous application of integral hermeneutics?"

I would say No,  because the catch is whether or not we are too sure of the accuracy of our interpretation......the risk is often great that we mistake the "Word of God" for our own interpreation of it.... and this is the problem that fundamantalists often fail to admit or realize.  

In other words,  it's fine to believe in ONE intent of the writer,  but just don't be so sure that you have some special way of knowing that which those who disagree don't have (at least obvious to you

In Mohler  blames old SBC  for Clinton's behaviour , I get a little miffed and disgusted

This article (click the link above to see it) is the utmost in conceited,  self-righteous,  judgmental smugness exhibited time and time again by this seminary president.  SBC people ought to be ashamed to have this guyas a seminary president.  Here he basically questions the spiritual values of generations of Southern Baptists who don't believe in the witch hunts which placed him in a position he clearly has no credentials to possess. He has no humility; I would laugh , and often do,  until I realize how sad it really is. 

How the theological climate of any one church or denomination can insure the sexual fidelityof ANY ONE of its members is a ridiculous issue to even draw a correlation.  One always hopes that people reared in a spirtual climate absorbs those values,  but the failings of one do not bear on the rightness of that theology.  And to call into question the legitimacy of the faith of a whole generation of Southern Baptists,  who were around before you, Al Mohler,  is such a crock. I look at the smug, self-assured smirk you exhibit and I cringe at the "witness" this must be for all of America ,  and as representative of the many Southern Baptists who still try to walk humby with their God.  Your God,  on the other hand,  you seem to have mixed up with somebody who looks like you;  that's the dominant impression I get.

I offer this link to the article you wrote as an example of the garbage you often spew,  and the majority of those who read it will recognize it for the extremely vile representation of spirtual pride and contempt that you you seem to be proud of spreading. Link to the vile filth

read my account "Sept. 10-11, 2002"

DRK Example : DataGrid Component.

I have put up a simple example of the datagrid component that shows some of the more advanced features.

You can view the example here.

The datagrid component is avaliable as part of the Developer Resource Kit.

[mesh on MX]

(David Weinberger, in our discussion yesterday, said I should check out his post regarding AKMA, so on I go)

In his discussion of hermeneutics,  and comparison of integral vs differential (supposing there is one right interpretation of intent of the author vs allowing or Not-insisting that there is ONE RIGHT interpretation of intent ----he makes a point that I consider important to the larger question of "unity in diversity"

"In a certain respect, these two aren't antithetical. The unity of meaning (on a differential account) lies entirely beyond the present order- but don't deny some sort of unity. Similarly, integralists don't deny plurality nor do they (usually--but sc. Southern Baptist seminaries) wish by main force to impose their interpretive conclusions. "

The last point,  complete with reference to the Southern Baptists,  is one I feel compelled to agree ,  and to comment (as a somewhat embarassed Southern Baptist who does NOT support the rhetoric of insistence upon "correct interpretation" as is sought by the imposers) .  I  can completely confirm as accurate the implication that they intend to "enforce" some sets of requirements for "legitimate standing in the theological community".  I find this present set of Southern Baptist Leaders who are engaged in the campaigns of "disenfranchising" thousands of decent,  honest,  but of a "different mind" as to the interpretations of Scriptures,  to be out of bounds in terms of the ethics of Chrsitian community,  not becuase of their views,  but because they seek to question the legitimacy of the Christian journey of those who do not agree. 

In "The Southern Baptist Convention", I express some more of the levels of disgust I have with this whole ordeal that has rolled through the Southern Baptist Copnvention for the past 20 years (I graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1981,  just before the fundamentalist, "liberal witch-hunt" commenced,  which totally changed the face and level of education in that seminary,  and sent most of its teachers elsewhere)

I had written : I also wanted to ask: Could  I post the email you sent me  along with the two replies I sent you afterward? I thought  it appropriate that I clear that point up that you called to  my attention.

Dave W: I guess it's ok. I look pretty snippy in the msg I sent you, but, what the heck

I reply: Not at all, from my view. When I saw your first reply, I was immediately repentant, being so proud as I am of how universal I consider muself to be ---- and how easily I can slide right over and sit at the feet of a guiding spirtual leader of other "traditions" such as Gandhi, who I thought had more "Christian" morals and faith than the vast majority of Christians, or the Buddhist monk Hanh Thich Nhat (who wrote a book , among others, called "Living Buddha, Living Christ". Its' funny (not really), that I have another article that I titled "The Cosmic Christ" that I use to describe what I see as the working of God in all cultures, even those who have not been "mission" targets of Christian missionaries. And , in the context of this discussion we are having, is inappropriately named as it has "Christ" in its name. It's really about how the whole idea of "the Christ" in a Christian setting is one of "God revealing", and that this "revealing" has been in action from the get-go, and that God is in constant effort of "self-revelation", and is engaged EVERYWHERE with ALL people and cultures.

In this context, that of the theological relationship between Jewish faith and Christian faith, there is , and should be, a much more intimate relationship, but the refusal of many Christians to understand what I have tried to express (and many others) about how the same truths can be "realized" within the bounds of many "revelations", has made "Christ" the dividing point, rather than the "interpretation (or in some cases, RE-interpretation which leads to life" which I believe Jesus sought, as well as many other "reformers" or "renewal advocates" within Judaism have done throughout the ages). While I believe Jesus was somewhat unique and had a historically and theologically significant perspective and authority, I doubt he had the kind of "new religion" that resulted in mind (particularly as it evolved into such a thouroughly Western and "American" expression).

My "theological evolution" quip was, in the same kind of context, an effort to debate an often made "Christian" assumption that other religions must be held to a standard that we do not require of our own: ie. That there be no signs of a conquesting attitude in the Scriptures, and so we must hold ourselves to the light of scrutiny and face the accusations as to why, say, in the book of Joshua, we see a command attributed to God to kill all the inhabitants of a city. I jump to the Christian "later" tradtion because this is the one that should be most authoritative for the Christian audience, not because we can't find answers much earlier, as with the prophetic books or stories of forgiveness and responding and showing compassion to the enemy that we find also in the "Old" testament. Jesus is obviously the authoritative figure in legitimizing any "interpreting" of Hebrew Scriptures in light of a higher ethic---- higher in the sense of being "higher" than the conquesting figure we see in some stories as the land of Canaan was taken--- (and which as I affirmed before, this "higher ethic" came to him from his own Jewish traditions and his explorations of them under the guidance of many teachers