1 in 7 Gitmo Releasees Return to Terror

Welcome to another addition of "The Most Absurd Item of the Day." Yahoo News reports on a Pentagon statement that reveals that seventy-four, or one in every seven released enemy combatants returns to terrorism. King Solomon said it best:

Like a dog that returns to its vomit Is a fool who repeats his folly.

Saudi Arabia's First Beauty Pagent

By Saudi standards, Sukaina al-Zayer is an impressive--she is the first woman to win Saudi Arabia's "Miss Beautiful Morals" contest.

"The idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants' commitment to Islamic morals... It's an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman's body and looks," said pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak.

It's almost endearing, except for the fact that woman are treated like second class citizens in the Kingdom...

SCOTUS Opening: Souter to leave the Court

President Obama gets his first chance to replace a sitting justice on the Supreme Court. Yesterday evening, NPR announced that left leaning associate justice David Souter will retire at the end of the Court's term in June.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder blogs on some possible replacement picks. Any thoughts?

Men of faith

Larry Crabb, in The Silence of Adam: Becoming Men of Courage on a World of Chaos, writes the following:

I love to read biographies, the stories of men like Oswald Chambers, C.S. Lewis, John Knox, Jonathan Edwards, Augustine, Paul, and Jeremiah. As I read about their lives, I get the impression that our modern ideas about masculine maturity are a far cry from what godly men of earlier generations understood and practiced.

We talk a lot today about things like vulnerability and the courage to feel our pain. They seemed more interested in worship and witnessing. We speak of honest communication and living up to our potential. They fell to their knees in brokenness and got up to serve.

I wonder if the virtues we try to develop came naturally to those men from years ago whose toughest battles were fought against whatever kept them from knowing Christ.

We get together in small groups to share our feelings and to discuss principles for relating more intimately or building self-esteem. They took long walks with older men who spoke easily about God and broke into prayer without warning. (p. 30)

Granted, the ability to be vulnerable and discuss feelings are valuable and necessary (and the "tough guy" image that these characteristics are legitimately reacting against has its problems), but all too easily these seem to replace depth and worship in our lives. Perhaps we do spend far too much effort on coming to "know ourselves" to the detriment of coming to know Christ. Perhaps we must come to the One who, when we submit ourselves to follow Him, will not let us foolishly walk in the paths of darkness and mirages that we all too easily embrace. For He offers life--not an easy life, not a comfortable life, not a self-centered life, but a transformed and worshipful and true life.

Even Though He's Off the Sidelines, Dungy is Still Coaching

Even though he's been out of the NFL for two season, Tony Dungy is still coaching, according to USA Today. The paper had a front page story on Coach Dungy, who is now using his retirement to do prison ministry and fellowship. Traveguz Butler, 34, serving a 30-year sentence that extends to December 2028 for carjacking, robbery and false imprisonment commented about Dungy's visit to his prison:

"He could have absolutely been doing anything else, but decided to spend time with us... It's uplifting. I'm glad that he was able to lower himself down to our level."

Praise God for such great men of influence working to build His Kingdom!

Quote for the day--More Empistemology

When people come to Christ in search of an answer to a felt need, they will be on unstable footing unless they are quickly grounded in the truths of the gospel....After twenty-one years of evangelistic ministry with non-Christians, I have come to the conclusion that most people come to Christ in order to have a felt need met, but they stay with Christ because they have come to believe that the gospel is true. (Ajith Fernando, Acts NIV Commentary, p. 113)

Why do you believe the things you do? I was once talking to someone who, in effect, expressed the sentiment that he didn't believe in God because he didn't like the ideas/implications that the truth of God's existence would entail. Of course, when we think about this, it is apparent that our feelings and desires do not dictate what is true. I am not fond of the fact that I will injure myself if I try to bench too much weight at the gym, but if I am to avoid injury I must accept this truth. Similarly, whether or not we like the idea of God's existence, we must each address such a possibility apart from simply our desires concerning it. The fact of whether or not He exists is not dictated by whether or not I want him to exist.

So we must answer this question.

Harvard student takes on Rep. Barney Frank

Leave it to a conservative at Harvard Law School to muster up the courage to take on House Rep. Barney Frank on the financial crisis and housing meltdown. The student's composure is a stark contrast to Rep. Frank who stumbles and bumbles his way to a half-witted answer. The student asked "How much responsibility, if any, do you have for the financial crisis?" Take a look at the video below to see how frazzled the esteemed congressman from Massachusetts gets: