its been a nice ride

Well, one year and five months to the day after I started Sports & Convictions, I'm moving the site to a new home. There, it'll be easier for me (which I hope means a better site eventually!) and more eye-appealing to you (partly b/c I've dropped the black background that I switched to while mourning over John Smoltz's departure to the Red Sox.)

So, here's hoping you make the switch with me to the new digs over at WordPress, where I'll work under the same title, just a new home...

http://sportsandconvictions.wordpress.com/.

So long, Blogger...

mark richt should break the rules

Check this out from the AJC's college recruiting beat writer, Michael Carvell:

the headline - "UGA's Mark Richt should break the rules in the name of academics"

And I couldn't agree more. Check out the story (it's a one-minute read).

The snippet is this: UGA has recruited a blue-chip lineman, Chris Burnette, who also happens to be in the running to be the valedictorian of his graduating class. The stud lineman apparently is a stud student, carrying a 5.12 GPA with about a month of class left. From an earlier story I read it sounds like he decided to skip graduating early to play in spring practice (and try to earn a higher spot on the depth chart) in order to stay in high school, get the grades and graduate first in his class.

Richt, supporting Burnette's decision, told him if he graduated #1 and got to speak at his graduation ceremony, then Richt himself would attend his graduation.

Until the NCAA threatened to slap UGA and Richt with a recruiting violation for it.

Well, Coach Richt, I'm okay with this violation. Do the right thing; show strong support for academics. And, in effect, show the NCAA how they've got their priorities all wrong.

hudson taylor's "exchanged life"

I just wanted to share a bit from a chapter of Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, the biography of missionary Hudson Taylor.

This below is taken from a letter Taylor sent to his sister from China, after he had experienced a deep time of feeling away from God. It's bit long, but I've tried to shorten where I can while keeping the meat of it. If you want the whole thing, let me know...
-------
"Well, dearie, my mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally and for our Mission of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for mediation--but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.

I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, and constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, caused me to forget Him. ... Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. ...

Then came the question, 'Is there no rescue?' Must it be thus to the end--constant conflict, and too often defeat? How could I preach with sincerity that, to those who receive Jesus, 'to them he gave the power to become the sons of God' (i.e., Godlike) when it was not so in my own experience? ...

I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. There was nothing I so much desired as holiness, nothing I so much needed; but far from in any measure attaining it, the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp, until hope itself almost died out ...

All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was--how to get it out. He was rich truly, but I was poor; He was strong, but I weak. ... As light gradually dawned, I saw that faith was the only requisite--was the hand to lay hold on His fulness and make it mine. But I had not this faith.

I strove for faith, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. ... Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was, I felt, the damning sin of the world; yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith, but it came not. ...

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter [received from a friend] was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed to me the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. [The friend wrote,] I quote from memory:

'But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.'

As I read, I saw it all! 'If we believe not, He abideth faithful.' [2 Tim. 2:13] I looked to Jesus and saw ... that He had said 'I will never leave thee.' [Heb 13:5] ...

I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, but that I am a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ...

Oh, my dear Sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and your left poor? ...

Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerck say to a customer, 'It was only your hand, not you, that wrote that check'; or 'I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself''? No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus ... on the ground that we are His, His members.

The sweetest part ... is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. ... So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance? in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? ... And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells with me.

... I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ -- and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and 'the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.' ...

truth prevails

"Faithful Christian, seek the truth; hear the truth; learn the truth; love the truth; speak the truth; adhere to the truth; defend the truth to the death..."

These are the words of John (Jan) Hus, the so-called pre-Reformer, martyred after a life of defending the truth 100 years before Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door at Wittenburg. Hus was the subject of a lecture given today by Dr. Josef Solc at SEBTS Chapel.

Of Hus, Solc said, "the success in his preaching lay in the fact that John Hus was a sermon before he preached it."

throw him a bone

After I've had a little time to settle down, I've decided to give Damon Evans (above, left) the benefit of the doubt in his hiring of Mark Fox. Evans is, after all, the Athletics Director at a major university and I'm only ... well, I'm only some guy who likes to think he might know something, but in reality is guessing just like everyone else.

Evans gets paid to make these decisions. I pay to watch his decisions play out on the court.

Initially, I told friends here that it seems to me Georgia was going after an "established" winner from a major basketball power, and we ended up with some schmoe from Nevada who nobody's ever heard of. Who the heck is Mark Fox? (Seriously, I can barely remember if his name is Mike or Mark...)

And while his 123-43 record is pretty impressive, you've got to remember that it came at Nevada, a far cry from the SEC (well, maybe not so far after how poor the Southeastern Conference played this season...).

He did take his team to the Dance three out of five years and has five straight 20-win seasons.

But the big question is, how will that transfer to Georgia, where he's competing with Kentucky, Florida and Tennessee in conference, plus Georgia Tech, Clemson and many others for recruits?

My initial thoughts: It won't transfer. We'll be doing the same search four years down the road.

Part of me wished we kept Jim Harrick and just swept the infamous test scandal and the Tony Cole saga under the rug.

But I've got a new-found hope in my boy Damon Evans. I'm gonna give him credit for what I hope turns out to be a smart and savvy hire, because all signs point to that being exactly what Evans thinks he's done.

He gave Fox a six-year deal with a $2-million buyout - neither commonly done to coaches you expect to be mediocre at best. His deal totals near $8 million, and he gets 75% of that if he's fired without cause. Again, Evans has high expectations that Fox will be around for a while.

The man has interviewed with Cal and Nebraska in the recent past - as in, he's been on the radar screen for big opportunities for a while now. Thankfully (I hope), Georgia got him before someone else did.

He's noted as a workaholic, constantly learning and preparing, expecting his teams to win.

He might not be Anthony Grant (Alabama's new coach via VCU) or Mike Anderson (who re-upped with Mizzou) or Tubby Smith (the one time UGA coach, national title winner with Kentucky and now with Minnesota), but the biggest difference between those three guys and Mark Fox is opportunity. They've had it on a big stage, he hasn't.

Now he's got it.

So, Damon Evans, this is me trusting you. Hope you made the right call.

tourney update

With the Final Four this weekend I wanted to give a quick update on where Steph and I stand in our head-to-head matchup.

My final four:
Louisville (lost to Michigan State)
Memphis (lost to Missouri)
Syracuse (lost to UNC)
Pittsburgh (lost to Villanova)

Steph's final four:
Michigan State (beat L'ville)
UConn (beat Mizzou)
UNC (beat Syracuse)
Duke (lost to Villanova)

Somehow or another I went from correctly picking 14 of the Sweet 16 to getting exactly ZERO correct in the Final Four. That's right. I'm 0-for-4 (first time in my life!), while my wife, who I think picked by choosing the school's she's simply heard of before, is 3-for-4. This is going to be a long year between now and my chance at redemption in next year's tourney.

tournament time

So Stephanie and I are having a little head-to-head bracket competition with this year's NCAA tourney and, thankfully, after a horrid day one, I've taken the lead.

It's tough to be a huge sports fan (heck, I majored in "Sport Studies" at UGA...no joke...) and be down to your wife in the bracket. But that's exactly where I stood when I went to sleep after the first day of the tourney.

I spent that evening hearing Steph with excitement proclaim "I voted for them!" each time one of her teams won.

Apparently the NCAA tournament is now a democracy. Who knew?

Somehow or another, though, the tide has turned and she's no longer happy when her team wins; now she's only happy if her team wins and my team loses. So it goes.

But, as I type at 7:32 on Saturday night (UNC 74, LSU 63), I'm 24-for-32 in the first round, with only one team out of the second round and Steph's 23-for-32 in the first with five teams out of the second.

Not trying to brag about beating my wife and all. Or maybe I am.

My ego needs all the help it can get.

----

For what it's worth...

My sweet 16: Louisville, Arizona, Kansas, Mich State, UConn, Purdue, Marquette, Memphis, Pitt, Xavier, Villanova, Duke, UNC, Illinois, Syracuse, Oklahoma.

My Elite Eight: L'ville, Mich State, UConn, Memphis, Pitt, 'Nova, UNC, Syracuse.

My Final Four: L'ville, Memphis, Pitt, 'Cuse.

My Championship Game: Pittsburgh over Memphis.

stanley and vestal on expository preaching

Once again, I'm straight stealing a blog post. This came off of two posts from my friend David Wilhite. (By the way, his blog is one I highly recommend.)

The first bit is from Andy Stanley in response to a question Ed Stetzer asked in a recent interview. If you don't know him, Stanley is pastor of mega-church North Point Community Church in the north Atlanta suburbs. I've been there a couple times. It's huge. He's a great communicator, but his comments below confirmed my suspicions...

----

Stetzer: What do you think about preaching verse-by-verse messages through books of the Bible?

Stanley: "Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible--that is just cheating. It's cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn't how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that. There's not one example of that.

All Scripture is equally inspired, but not all Scripture is equally applicable or relevant to every stage of life. My challenge is to read culture and to read an audience and ask: What is the felt need? Or perhaps what is more important, what is an unfelt need they need to feel that I can address? Because if they don't feel it, then they won't address it."

-----

Today, Wilhite posted a response to his intial post that he got from another friend of mine, Michael Vestal. Its a little lengthy, but I thought it was very insightful and worth a read. Here's what Michael said:

"I think it is a subtly self-centered or man-centered basis that leads us to despise exegetical preaching. If we believe the task is to 'read the times' and then apply an appropriate answer from the whole scope Scripture, we must believe that the fundamental need lies in a smart use of Scripture. We've assumed a role that's not ours; we've assumed we have something to offer, something to say. (And sometimes there might be good reason for that approach - in writing a book, in giving a specific seminar, teaching a class, or just in discussion with friends, etc.)

But if this approach is taken in the time slot traditionally assigned to 'preaching the Word' then we forfeit (at least one opportunity for) what we need most of all: to hear from God Himself. Do we trust in our own insight and resourceful citing of Scripture (almost as a tool to support our message)? Or do we believe, whatever our current situations might be, that what we need more than anything else is to see and treasure Christ? If we're trusting in Him - not in ourselves, at some level - then we'll want to hear His Word, to get on His 'agenda,' to absorb His perspective, even if to do that I am required to put my personal issues on the back-burner and trust that He cares for me.

I would not think that a strictly verse-by-verse approach is always necessarily called for. Of course, some consideration for the particular audience and thoughtful selection of the Word is required - essentially the same reasons that we have services in English instead of Latin or Greek or Hebrew. So, I definitely think that pastors must thoughtfully consider their congregation's particular need and should responsibly seek to bring the Word to them.

And I would be very comfortable giving Andy Stanley the benefit of the doubt - that he's doing just that. But underneath whatever particular approach we take there should be a fundamental trust in God's Word, not our own. Our mentality should be that people need to hear from God - and not necessarily on the topics they would choose - or that we would choose for them. In some respects, the very thing we need is to be removed from our own perspective, to be immersed in a Biblical perspective. Then, when we return to the everyday practical concerns, we'll see them more accurately. And we'll have a high view of Christ's glory, and if we embrace Him, we'll have what we essentially need in any setting.

Consider what Dietrich Bonhoeffer says about reading the Psalms: 'We also ought not to select Psalms at our own discretion, thinking that we know better what we ought to pray than does God himself. To do that is to dishonor the prayer-book of the Bible' (Psalms, p.26)."

censorship in the 21st century

Apparently, according to WND, Wikipedia doesn't allow anything negative to go on Barack Obama's page on the online "encyclopedia", even if it's something that's been published in reputable sources.

Still think Wikipedia's legit?

(HT: Tim Challies)

Sexting and Abuse in Teen Relationships

I've got two separate topics today that I'm going to deal with together because they both should give us great concern for our teens and the direction in which our culture is heading.

Post #1:

Teenage "Sexting" Statistics are Alarming.

I checked this out after seeing a spot on the "Today" show this morning discussing an 18-year-old girl who committed suicide after a nude photo she sent by cell phone to her boyfriend was forwarded to dozens of people after they broke up.

These numbers blew my mind:

Percent of teens who have sent or posted nude or semi-nude pics of themselves:

20% of teens overall
22% of teen girls
18% of teen boys
11% of teen girls, age 13-16

Percent of teens sending or posting sexually suggestive messages:

39% of teens overall
37% of teen girls
40% of teen boys

15% of those who sent pictures did so to someone they knew only from online.

21% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys send these messages to someone they simply want to hook-up with.

36% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys say it is common for these photos to get shared with people other than the recipient.

12% of teen girls report feeling pressured to send this type of content.

The numbers are very alarming. As I said earlier, at least one suicide has been linked to this messaging, after the breakup of the relationship found the pics distributed freely. More frequently, teens can face felony child pornography charges due to spreading these photos.

There are so many layers to this societal problem that I'm not sure that I could unpack them all. It's easy for me, a 26-year-old with no children, to blast parents for not being involved enough to know what's going on when I don't have kids of my own and have no way to know what raising teenagers in today's society is like. But something's going on here that must be discussed. For some reason we've got a generation of girls and boys who want to be adults, who want to "feel sexy" and who morally have no reason not to attempt to act on these desires.

In a world whose standard of right and wrong is now determined only by causing harm to another, teen sexting then only seems like a "no harm, no foul" issue to these teenagers.

And speaking of this standard of right and wrong...

Post #2:

Some Teens Say Dating Violence is Normal.

In the wake of the Chris Brown/Rihanna abuse case, more and more is coming out about teenagers' view of violence in dating relationships.

I read this story (from the Chicago Tribune) in yesterday's Raleigh News and Observer. Listen to these teenagers own words about this type of violence:

"People said, 'I would have punched her too!'" one girl said. "And these were girls!"

"She probably did something to provoke it!"

"There was a girl this week at school with a scratch on her eye," another girl said. "She was talking openly about her boyfriend hitting her, but she was smiling and saying it was funny."

The numbers say 1 in 10 teens experience such abuse, and females age 16-24 are the most likely to experience violence in romantic relationships.

Again, I'll leave it to you mostly to draw conclusions. But, as I told my wife last night, what can we expect in a society where there is no standard right and wrong. If I'm okay with it after you hit me, then it's okay for you to hit me.

Moreover, in a culture that is rapidly losing it's distinction between males and females, it only follows that it becomes increasingly acceptable for men (and boys) to abuse women (and girls). I was raised in a home where hitting a girl was more or less a capital offense. Sadly, those types of homes today seem fewer and farther between.

All in all, the church has to do something. From calling on fathers and mothers to shepherd their children carefully through our dangerous culture to youth pastors and pastors engaging the church with stories like these. If the numbers for so many areas of life are virtually the same in the church and outside of the church (e.g., divorce, etc), we'd be naive to think these two issues are any different. As SEBTS President Danny Akin says, for ministers not to engage churches over this would be ministerial malpractice.

cleaning the inside of the cup

Jesus has seven "Woe's" that he pronounces on the religious leaders of his day recorded in Matthew 23:13-36. It's easy for me to read these on cruise control, smugly thinking to myself that I'm glad I'm not like those Pharisees.

Only, after further inspection, the comparison isn't as far-fetched as I'd like it to be.

So here's the brief version of the Woe's, with one question for each that I asked myself this morning:
____________________
1. You shut the Kingdom of heaven in people's faces, neither entering yourself, nor allowing others who would to enter.

Q: Am I bringing others with me into the Kingdom of heaven, by grace alone through faith alone?

2. You travel abroad to make a single convert and when you do, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are.

Q: Realizing that my practices are multiplied into those I lead spiritually, is my life following in line with Scripture or with mere tradition? Have I examined it carefully?

3. You say it's more important to make an oath by the gold of the temple or by the gift on the altar than by the temple or the altar itself.
[Christ is calling out the Pharisees as "blind" and "fools" b/c they neither see nor understand that God calls for utter faithfulness to Him that is not dependent on nuances of words.]

Q: Am I walking in faithfulness to God's word or am I trying to find loopholes and ways around wholehearted obedience?

4. You tithe mint, dill and cumin and neglect the more important things of justice, mercy and faithfulness - which you should do without neglecting the other.

Q: Am I following the "weighter matters" of the law, even when it goes unnoticed, while still obeying the more noticeable commands, or am I only doing what will be seen by others?

5. You clean the outside of the cup but the inside is still full of greed and self-indulgence.

Q: Am I concentrating on my outward appearance of righteousness for the approval of others or am I focusing on the inward and true righteousness of faith in Christ and obedience from the heart, even when unseen by man?

6. You are whitewashed tombs - you appear beautiful on the outside but are dead on the inside, you appear righteous but are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Q: Am I seeking conformity to the law of Christ or merely giving lipservice and ultimately following my own law?

7. You build the tombs of the prophets saying "if I lived in the days of my fathers I wouldn't have murdered these prophets" -- and in your lives you show that your are the murderers sons.
[By only outwardly honoring the prophets but not following what the prophets preached, they show that they do not honor them from their hearts.]

Q: Am I honoring Christ with my life - day in, day out; seen or unseen - or just with my words and outward appearances towards others?

be a Caleb

I read Numbers 13-14 this morning and wanted to say a quick thanks to some people out there.

I've had a handful of people in my life be Caleb to me. Like Caleb, who was among the spies to go check out the Promised Land and then urged the people to follow God faithfully in the face of seemingly overwhelming opposition, these people - in Athens, Dahlonega and now in Wake Forest - encourage me to keep trusting, keep following, and keep seeking to obey God's voice.

In my estimation, I can think of no higher way to love a fellow Christian.

In times of great need - when I felt ready to "throw in the towel" - and in the day-to-day walking with God, these people have been there. Standing beside me. Walking with me. Encouraging me, at times with urgency, to go into the Promised Land of trusting in God's word.

I'm thankful for you guys. You make me want to be a Caleb as well.

Government-Approved Prayer

Al Mohler offers his thoughts on President Obama's troubling practice of vetting prayers before public events in order to avoid any controversy due to ministers using the name "Jesus."

In my opinion, these sorts of things are troubling certainly, but probably point at worse things to come...

Hello, I'm Johnny Cash...

Side Note: This is more or less a shameless reposting of a blog from another site, as listed below. It's worth a look though... For anything coming from my own pea-brain, see my other post from today below...

You need to go to Justin Taylor's blog and check out his stuff on Johnny Cash today, what would've been Cash's 77th birthday. I've put a good bit of it below, but the whole deal is here (JT has links to more stuff on Cash).

First, Mars Hill Church's video bio on Johnny Cash:



From Russell Moore's essay on Cash:

"Johnny Cash is dead, and there will never be another. But all around us there are empires of dirt, and billions of self-styled emperors marching toward judgment.

Perhaps if Christian churches modeled themselves more after Johnny Cash, and less after perky Christian celebrities such as Kathy Lee Gifford, we might find ourselves resonating more with the MTV generation. Maybe if we stopped trying to be “cool,” and stopped hiring youth ministers who are little more than goateed game-show hosts, we might find a way to connect with a generation that understands pain and death more than we think.

Perhaps if we paid more attention to the dark side of life, a dark side addressed in divine revelation, we might find ourselves appealing to men and women in black. We might connect with men and women who know what it’s like to feel like fugitives from justice, even if they’ve never been to jail. We might offer them an authentic warning about what will happen when the Man comes around.

And, as we do this, we just might hear somewhere up in the cloud of witnesses a voice that once cried in the wilderness: 'Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.' "

____________

And, finally, two videos: "Redemption" and his last video, "Hurt"

applying Romans 1:18-32

One of the things that is easy for me not to do while reading through the Bible (as opposed to studying smaller passages) is think through ways of applying the scripture to my life. If I'm honest, there have been several days when I've closed my Bible and went on without letting it engage my mind and my life. And today that was the temptation.

So the challenge for me today - and everyday - is to apply the passage. The goal is life change, and that does not happen without seeking to put what I read into practice.

A couple days ahead in my reading plan, today one of the passages I read was the second half of Romans 1, where Paul describes the "unrighteous" who continue to "exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator..."

And my question, How does this - with no clear, practical exhortations - apply to my life today?

I thought of a few places, but I want to share one.

The thing for me this morning was realizing that what is going on in this passage is so evil and debase that it is bringing about the wrath of God. And what is going on here? Idolatry, sexual perversions, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossip, slander, haters of God, insolence, pride, folly, heartlessness, and ruthlessness.

That list comprises the bulk of cinema and television plot lines. It is the majority of what we see on the front pages of the magazines in the checkout lines at Wal Mart. What is going on here is what Hollywood and mainstream America feeds on for entertainment's sake.

One application of Romans 1:18-32 for me is this: Do not glory in what God hates. As I think about the movies I like (or don't really like but still laugh at and enjoy briefly), all too often they are promoting and lifting up things on account of which the wrath of God is coming to the world. How can I honor those things? I can't. Philippians 4 calls me to think on the things that are pure and worthy and honorable, and the things that bring about the applause of the masses and that are marketed to me by the world are not usually those things.

I am not going so far as to say don't watch movies or don't watch TV or don't listen to music or don't read magazines, I am saying that I need to do so more discerningly.

I've been reading through Jonathan Edwards' The End for which God Created the World recently and one quotation that stood out to me earlier applies here:

"The applause of the multitude very frequently is not founded on any just view of things, but on humour, mistake, folly and unreasonable affections. Such applause deserves to be disregarded."

Lane Kiffin

Ok, Ok, one more quick link. This one is HILARIOUS. If you follow the SEC, then you know about Lame Kitten's tendency to stick his foot in his mouth. (Which is great, b/c the guy's been at UT a month and at this rate he'll be fired for saying something obscenely stupid by mid-July...)

Anywho, here's a link from Third Saturday in Blogtober with a fictional meeting between Kiffin and UT's AD, Mike Hamilton. ... Genius ...

Kurkjian & Stark on Chipper and the Braves

The Worldwide Leader has two good spots on the Braves right now worth checking out. The pieces are the usual, looking at the past success of the Braves and comparing it to what's going on in Atlanta today. This practice, I imagine, will continue until Cox, Chipper and Glavine head outta town (5 years more years for Chip?).

Anywho, here's the links:

Jayson Stark on Atlanta's starting pitching, yesterday and today. Well worth the read for the Braves fan. Stark's thoughts (one year after he predicted the team to win the World Series): "This could be a team capable of a big turnaround."

Tim Kurkjian on Chipper Jones, making him out to be Chingaachgook, the Last of the Mohicans. Chipper gives his take on finishing his career with the Braves, winning the batting title, playing in the WBC, as well as, briefly, on steroids & A-Rod, saying "I think A-Rod, with or without steroids, is a Hall of Famer. Same as Barry Bonds." Interesting, Chipper.

(1) Obama, (2) Jesus

So a poll came out today from Harris Interactive of who Americans view as heroes. I'll give you a hint, the title to this blog wasn't something I came up with...it's how America ranked 'em. True story.

As far as commentary is concerned, all I'll say regarding the order of the first two spots is this: I'm excited (honestly) about Barack Obama's presidency. This really is an historic moment for our nation. Do not read this post as a knock on this event for our country. This poll just underscores the increasing secularization of our society and the overwhelming need for gracious biblical proclamation and teaching to take place.

Here's the top 15:

1. Barack Obama
2. Jesus
3. Martin Luther King, Jr.
4. Ronald Reagan
5. George W. Bush
6. Abraham Lincoln
7. John McCain
8. John F. Kennedy
9. Chesley Sullenberger (pilot that landed the US Airways flight in the Hudson R.)
10. Mother Teresa
11. God
12. Hillary Clinton
13. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
13. Billy Graham
15. Mahatma Ghandi

A few observations:

-Interestingly, God made the list twice. God the Son came in at number 2 and God the Father (at least I'm assuming that's who they're referring to) came in at number 11. I'm trying to find the positives here, people.

-While John McCain lost to number 1, Barack Obama, in the elections, maybe it's comforting for him to know that he could've beaten John F. Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and George Washington (who came in tied for number 16), three of America's most prolific and influential presidents.

-Somehow, America's least popular president ever (depending on which media source you listen to), George W. Bush, made the top 5. Maybe the guy wasn't viewed as so bad after all, ey?

One more thing:

As for reasons given to call someone a "hero", the number one answer given (89%) was this: "Doing what is right regardless of personal consequences."

Isn't this a funny answer coming from our relativistic, "what's right for you isn't right for me" society? Maybe there is an embedded sense of right and wrong after all...

statistical shift in the NBA

Just got finished reading one of the most fascinating articles I've read in quite some time. The NY Times story is about NBA player Shane Battier (formerly of Duke and now playing with the Houston Rockets) and how the Rockets management is now crunching stats in the same way that much of baseball (famously, Theo Epstein) does.

Eye-opening in this piece are the stats of Kobe Bryant, whom Battier has famously kept off-balance in their last few encounters. For instance, how 'bout this: "Since the 2002-03 season, Bryant has taken 51 3-pointers at the very end of close games from farther than 26.75 feet from the basket. He had missed 86.3 percent of them."

And, in this number-crunching manner, Shane Battier, averaging a meager 6.1 points per game this year, is one of the best players in the NBA. Seriously.

For sports fans, this is a must read. I kid you not, 10 years from now the basketball landscape will look much like baseball statistically-speaking, affecting not only how games are analyzed, but how teams are built and trades are made.

kohls

So I guess because my diverse readership hails from around the globe (or, uh, around the I-85 corridor between Atlanta and Raleigh), I at least ought to use the medium to provide occassional updates on the Life of Steph and Bert in addition to my rantings about sports, politics and Christianity. So here goes...

So I had an interview with Kohls yesterday, and for those of you praying for my job hunt I ask that you keep doing so. I should find out something soon (within the next week) about this one.

It was a weird interview. They're opening a new store in the WF (that is, Wake Forest... is this town hip enough to call "the WF"?) and are hiring about 130 part time employees to run it. Apparently that's the way to go these days - staff everything with part-timers. Good for the store, bad for many of the workers, but so it goes. Kinda makes me think of this cartoon I saw on Wilhite's blog: (click on it to enlarge)



That cartoon was originally published fifteen years ago, by the way...

Gotta love Calvin and Hobbes. If I could, I'd keep a book of them by the toilet along with my handheld Yahtzee game and Golf Digest magazines. (Steph's not going to like me revealing my man-throne secret stash on the internet...)

I wonder if they'll have a Calvin and Hobbes book in the Kohls employees' bathroom?

Anywho, the interview was a group one (to speed up the process for them of interviewing 1000, literally, candidates) and so I was sitting around a conference table with 11 other folks as the interviewer asked five questions to each of us. Afterwards, he had to go "check to make sure all the forms were filled out correctly", and the " " marks aren't there to signify a direct quotation. He actually came back and asked for me and two others to stay behind because we "didn't fill the forms out correctly", he ushered the others out of the room and shut the door to inform us that we've made the cut. Whew.

I felt like I was auditioning for American Idol...only this guy wasn't Simon Cowell and (thankfully) I didn't have to sing. Which, if I did, I would find myself on one of those first few shows where they make people look like fools.

So anyway, apparently I'm going to find out soon if I get another interview after I filled out a few more forms yesterday behind closed doors. Hopefully though they'll be more honest throughout the rest of the process...

So there it is. If you're of the praying sort, pray that I am gainfully employed soon.

And while you're at it, send up a little prayer for a Calvin and Hobbes book to be in the employee bathroom.