cwsox

the retired number players in the outfield look wonderful! first time I have seen that! Wow! I am impressed! that is awesome!

Whatever Ozzie does it won't be as stupid as when GM Hawk put Fisk in the outfield

Mike Squires, one of two Sox players to come from kalamazoo, was flashed on the screen - good to see him, always liked him

looking at the roster at whitesox.com (where I learned Timo has another name) I note that Frank is listed as a DH and not as an infielder - will he never play 1st again?

Hey, no one on this board has ever called him Perez! Its always been Timo! so all I don't know is all I didn't learn from you all!

answered my own question - Timo! I guess I thought he was like Cher and had only one name I never knew he was a Perez

what I want to know is, why do people call me on church business when here is a game on - ok, this is really a dumb question, who is Perez?

since you are drinking for the first time I have a recommendation for you

I agree with the sentiment - our faith is so largely determined by culture, by time and place where the egg meets the sperm - if I thought that my way was the only way I would not believe at all - all I know is the way that I know God, which is through Christ, and that I want to share God has many ways to us and it is not for me to attempt to limit those by what are the confines of my faith and if I really thought that God would be so tyrannical and narrow and out of touch with the cultural and historical realities of religion that billions of people would be damned to hell because they were not born in the right culture in the right time and place - if I thought that the Jews who perished at Auschwitz at the hands of Christians* were damned to hell then indeed God could go do what Brando and GOWT said - if I thought that anyone was damned because of the circumstances of their life then I would despise God in God's house are many rooms - we may or may not be surprised at who all is in them - *and if anyone wants a long, very long bibliography on Nazi-ism, the churches, and the people, the tens and hundreds of thousands of people who operated the death camps and the gas chambers, and needs to be reminded that those were Christians killing Jews, gays, gypsies, socialists, communists, that can be supplied

I ask and no one ever answers: what is a power ranking? How is based? What determines it? What does it measure?

Galatians was written by Paul. We always are cool! For you and Jim, the Prime Covenant (aka OT) is so foundational for me and as well for Jesus who operated totally out of that and for the Christian faith. Remember Paul in Romans says we are a branch of the tree - the tree being the faith in the God of the Scriptures of the Prime Covenant. I think a lot of people so misunderstand the original Scriptures. Starting with Genesis and reading forward is a great way to bogged down by all kinds of stuff and give up. Ecclesiastes - one of the most beautiful poetic works ever and so profound - and the prophets - the amazing prophets - so different than our Sunday School images. A book I recommend to you both is Abraham Heschel's "The Prophets." Start there. Out of that thinking is the prism by which to view the rest of the Prime Covenant and certainly John the Baptist and Jesus are linear descendents of the 8th centruy prophets.

me say you dominate? Never! I will avoid an exegesis on that passage for domestic matters. That analogy can be carried too far anyway. Two spouses will have intercourse but Christ does not have intercourse with the church. Translations can be political. The passage on Phoebe: I am really unhappy with that translation for its uses words not in Greek text and omits others. Paul identifies Phoebe as a diakonai (bad transliteration) which - at the time Paul wrote that, in the late 40s or early 50s CE - was a term used for clergy, pastors of local faith communities. The later distinctions and roles of deacon, presbyter (what we call a pastor), and episkope (bishop) had not yet developed. So, Paul calls Phoebe a clergy person, specificially, a deacon, and Phoebe was pastor of her faith community to the same extent that any male could have been. There is other Biblical evidence and tons of extraBiblical evidence from writings of the same period that women indeed served as clergy. The usual political translation based on the AV (KJV) was to call Phoebe a "deaconess" (such as a nun or sister) even though every time Paul used the exact word elsewhere it was presented as they were clergy. The AV (KJV) was avowedly political in one of its intended goals, to show women as subserviant. The history on that is long and I am not going to do that now but England at that moment was ruled by King James (by the way, a very gay man, one of God's greatest jokes on conservatives who swear by the King James Version) after two successive queens, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth who had a very long reign, Mary Queen of Scots (James' mother) having ruled in Scotland when she came of age and took the regency from her mother Mary de Guise, while Catherine de Medici was the power behind the throne of France for something like 50-70 years. So where the 16th century saw many strong women in leadership, the early 17th century when the KJV was done was in part to downplay the role of women so the men could be on top again. So they demoted Phoebe to a "deaconess." The translation you quote doesn't even suggest that to me and it clearly does not say that she was clergy in faith community, which Paul says. In fact, it can be easily argued that as in Luke the imminence of the Gospel was first proclaimed to a woman, and as in all the Gospels the announcement of Resurrection was first given to women (and the men being sexist pig assholes did not believe the women) so too women served as clergy, as the leaders of some/many of the early faith communities. In the Orthodox Church, Mary Magdalene is regarded as an apostle and I think they are on to something there. Is a pastor the head of a congregation? Not in my book. A pastor is a servant. The pastor does not rule the congregation. Christ is the head of the Church. The Church are the people. The congregation, local gathered faith community, is served by a pastor who has certain functions of service and ministry but being head of the congregation is not a role that I - a pastor - would assign to a pastor. Decison-making, polity in the local congregation, must (in my opinion) vest decision making, who makes the final decision, within the people, the entire community, and that is represented by parish councils, annual meetings, or variations thereof. The people call (hire) their pastor and should be able to fire their pastor. In real life I never have seen myself as the head of the congregation - Christ would be - I am not playing word games - my role is defined but does not include the power to make the final decisions, to be ruler. That is left with the people via their church board and the annual or semi annual congregational meetings. There were many times my desires did not prevail - many times they did - but only as we worked throuigh the decision making process with the congregation and council. If in fact a pastor "rules" the congregation, that is a formula for trouble. It certainly has happened, the Herr Pastor who rules the congregation and always makes the decisions. But that is not good nor healthy nor theoilogically sound as I see it. A pastor does not rule the congregation. Very long way of saying that in answer to your question, since the pastor does not rule the congregation, that removes that possible impediment in your question.

welcome to Soxtalk!

I resent that deeply. There is no superiority, none. I wonder when someone states (or "suggests") someone else is wrong on a matter of fact (not opinion, fact) and doesn't take a few minutes on line to look up the information. Israel was created by the UN. Pure fact. You said Apu is sure. Your thinking is wrong. Yes Apu knows. Last sentence, 1st clause, because of the Balfour Declaration, they had a stake; second clause, your guessing is wrong. a few minutes searching on google could have told you all that. I wonder why things can't be looked up before the implication is tossed that someone else is wrong. That is not arrogance, that is just wonder. And I apologise for anything that seemed arrogant to you for it was not meant that way. No offense was intended.

wow - your birthday! you have been a great friend and we all owe so much to you - happiest of birthdays to someone who really is really great guy!

As I recall I spoke of blessings on you and the grace we have of diversity within the church and it is all good your existential feelings towards a woman as pastor might change if you have a pastoral encounter with one - that would be my guess - it has been the experience of many - if the Spirit brings that to happen or not, good on you in God's name but as I said a few days ago in God's house there are many rooms and we don't have to crowd into the same one, which is my way of say as I have been saying all along that the diversity of Church is a gift and that is the equivilant of saying why we have many denominations glad that Soxygirl said it for you better than I did - and I am sorry that what I say is written so poorly vis a vis you, would be best that I withdraw from the conversation here since I am not writing it well enough to have any meaning so as not to waste the reader's time, I will absent.

I have 74,929 I was amazed at the number of folks who went 100,000+

your information is totally wrong. I am not doing your homework for you but study the Balfour Declaration, what it was, what it was not, and then review the origins of the state of Israel including the UN actions in 1947 and 1948 and especially note Truman's struggle to make a decision check with the official Israeli history of the state of history, and get their version of when the state of Israel was founded, based on what, and what date is their "anniversary" date. Apu you will find is exactly right.

What I think is "funny" is anyone who would restrict the call of God to the vocation of the office of ministry by reason of gender. To deny ordained ministry to women is as far as I can see sinful. Women served in the role of presbyter in the early Church and were systmatically removed from that position because of the male tendency to dominate. Intentional mistranslations of the same word when used towards males and females - there is a lot of Biblical scholarship out there available on that. I have worked with ordained women for all of my ordained years and see nothing funny about it but I have seen the ranks of the ordained clergy strengthened by its being open to Christ's call to all of Christ's people, reflecting Galatians, that in Christ there is no male nor female.

I'v read your work for years. You will do what you hope to do - you are a quality poster and I am delighted you are here at soxtalk!

Paul in Galatians (when he was thinking) said that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek male nor female... that Pauline text was very helpful in establishing the ordination of women in the mainstream church bodies you'd be right about later added material and certainly have me writing a letter of recommendation to LSTC for you by your saying

good post you used the wrong word, when you said "technically" when "actually" would be the right word for all of us. excellent post.

I bought his pants for $10 at SoxFest

Steve "Psycho" Lyons

People from Arkansas tend to marry people from MSU when they marry outside the family