Hot Off the Presses

                        Windmill Air Guitar in Shower
                             Injures Awkward Student

                Says He Didn't Think He Would Ever Be Victimized by Rock Theatrics

January 25, 2011
A stateline college student named Ian Olson says his recent foray into the shower brought him new insight into the words "Rock and roll."

"I rocked myself," Olson summarized, "and then I most definitely rolled."

The 26 year old is a freshman at Moody Bible Institute, taking classes online from his home in Janesville, Wisconsin. Olson has ambitions of pastoral ministry in the near future and accordingly began the arduous task of searching for the ideal bible college. Olson, you see, has stringent standards; when asked what criteria he considered prime in the selection of a college, one thing seemed to stand out above the rest. "They actually let me listen to righteous tunes there," Olson opined triumphantly, when asked what led him to his choice of college. "Dudes can shred all manner of gnarly noiseterpieces there, bro, for real! It's like Neil Peart being able to just let loose: buhl-le-duhl-luh-de-duh..."

What ensued seemed to be his best impression of a drummer with a gigantic, invisible drum kit performing a long fill with several rack toms and double bass drums represented by the kitchen table and his knees and thighs. Out of breath, and with sweat suddenly dripping from his awkward forelocks, Olson intoned, "You know, like his solo in "Limelight?" Come on! You know that one, right? Aw, man! Are you serious??!!"

Olson started his Tuesday morning by having coffee with his wife Kristin in the living room of the sumptuous apartment they share in the idyllic Never Never Land of southern Wisconsin. Olson was excited to be taking part in a panel discussion at Rock County Christian School that day and wore his heart on his sleeve by singing fragments of 70's hits in a peculiar (borderline obnoxious) falsetto as he drove his wife to work. Olson is a bass and has difficulty at times approximating the pitch of some popular recording artists and says he often has to resort to falsetto to sound anything like his musical heroes. "Straight up, a lot of these dudes just have it, man- you know? Ya boy doesn't. I'll say it. But I do have this wicked falsetto I can unload when the time is right, like a gunslinger. You know? High noon? OK Corral? Draw!" When asked how he knows "the time is right," Olson responded, "Well, pretty much all the time, 'cause even a tenor's a little too high for these rubber band vocal cords, you know what I'm saying?" He then proceeded to give a monologue in a Barry White-esque vocal styling this reporter would much rather forget.

Olson returned home and began compiling notes for the panel discussion. Ebullient at the sheer weight of his gatherings, Olson detected a foul aroma in the atmosphere and realized he should probably get in the shower sooner rather than later. Inserting a Lord of the Rings bookmark into his copy of Why Johnny Can't Preach, Olson selected his wardrobe for the afternoon with careful consideration ("Gotta look tight if you want the kids to really give a rip what you're saying, you know? And, I mean, that's just what I do, you know?") and finding the water set at the Goldilocks factor ("You know- just right, bro!") hopped in.

Olson says he felt a sense of euphoria upon getting his hair wet under the shower head and a "wicked awesome heavy song" began to cycle through his mind as he looked forward to what his day would hold. Olson became so excited, in fact, that normal mores of shower protocol went out the proverbial window and he began instead to mimic some raucous guitar tectonics. Humming loud enough that his neighbor at the end of the hall's dog began to bark, Olson devoted the entirety of his energies to headbanging and pretending to sweep-pick a jaw-dropping Neoclassical electric guitar solo.

Unfortunately, that precluded watching his foot placement.

Fully extending his right arm out above his head, Olson performed a windmill guitar strum by executing a complete 360 degree turn downward and counterclockwise. Proud of himself, he then pretended to lift the invisible guitar above his head to the cheers of his adoring (and invisible and inaudible) audience and stomping his right foot to the pulse of (non-existent) crash cymbals when suddenly he felt his footing give away. "I thought I was gonna roll my ankle, dude, totally. Wouldn't be the first time, either! Like when I went sledding last year- I thought I broke the thing! I punish my body, dude, for real. For real."

Olson slid backward toward the east wall of the shower, and cracking his right elbow against the tile let loose a barbaric, painful yawp. Struggling to regain balance and composure, he slipped once more toward the north wall, slamming his body against the surface of the well and bashing the inside of his right elbow against the wall-mounted basket his wife kept face wash and other assorted, sundry items in. "No joke, man, no joke- that killed. Like, that literally murdered me. I was alive, and then that basket murdered me. Like Jack the Ripper or something," Olson offered by way of analogy.

Olson halted the downward spiral of shower injuries by clutching at the shower head with his left hand and the north wall with his right and waited for the room to stop spinning. Soon afterward he exited the shower without bothering to get all of the shampoo out of his hair, and, happy to be alive, plopped down in the comfy chair in the living room and promptly did a massive drum fill.

Later in the evening, his wife inquired as to why there was a band-aid on his right arm. "I just said, 'Oh, you must have given blood today,'" Kristin Olson says, recollecting that night, "but he sheepishly muttered something under his breath and tried to drop it. After repeating three more times that I didn't catch what he had said, he gave me this convoluted epic of windmills and collapsing that is so dumb that it's either a complete fabrication and hoax or it is in fact exactly what happened. Knowing Ian, I would have to go with the latter."

Asked if his air guitar hijinks have taught him a lesson, Olson answered, "Yeah, right on- I think I need to wear shoes with better treads or something so I don't lose it and spill and look like a tool, you know? Or I don't know, maybe I need velcro feet or something. But I do know I need to get real and get balanced." Olson intends to carry on the spirit of rock in the shower, in the hallways of his home, on the sales floor of Farm and Fleet where he currently works, and eventually on the platform when he accepts his diploma at graduation. After consulting with several experts, Olson says he won't give in to fear but will instead try to recognize the pitfalls of air guitar theatrics in certain applications and environments and work to remain cognizant enough of his surroundings that he can determine if it is a safe enough setting to allow for rock action.

Indeed, good form

     Old Testament Survey, New Testament Survey, College Writing, the Church and Its Doctrines. All are classes I have begun my first semester with Moody, and all melodiously roll off the tongue to the tune of "O Fortuna."
     Not working when you try it? Maybe it's only in my head...
     I found myself skipping down the hallway yesterday, ebullient at the thought of beginning my college career and ecstatic over the reflection of past providences that God has accomplished for me and Kristin. I've also been doing a lot of windmill air guitar and high, falsetto Yeahhhhhhs as I go to the kitchen for a refill of H20 after a bout of classwork (come on, you do things like this, admit it!). My little Star Wars action figures and my Optimus Prime Mr. Potato Head* oversee my efforts from atop my desk as I type away and soak in textbook readings in our recently commissioned office. Having consulted e-mails from my professors and covered the syllabus for each of my courses, I've been diving into lectures and reading assignments and shifting gears once more into the reality of having homework! In my writing course, for instance, I have an essay due on Saturday in which I must keenly evoke the sights, smells, and sounds of my favorite place. That will be a shindig and a half! To be totally forthright though, I am a procrastinator at heart. Left to my own devices, I put off the necessary in favor of that which often is not in that moment essential; a thing, not being necessarily frivolous,** may be good but may not be the highest good I am called to at that time. I recognize my acute need for discipline- it is absolutely imperative and will translate to other spheres of my life as well, so please pray for the plentiful communication of grace that I may persevere in my studies and assignments and never lose track of what's most important.
     Speaking of which, it's time for lunch- time to pwn!

*I know it sounds weird, but... well, I guess it is kinda weird, now that you mention it.
**Though I've done plenty of that too!

E'erbody holla!

     It's official! I am a freshman at Moody Bible Institute beginning classes on Tuesday and I don't think it's possible for me to be more psyched! I'm thrilled that God has provided the means that I may attend and further my education- the opening of the door is so plainly and evidently by His design. Praise the Lord!

Daze of Christmas Post, part the first

     It doesn’t seem possible, but my and Kristin’s second Christmas as man and wife has come and gone, filling me with a sense of contentment and gratitude to God for granting me the love of my life, and a sense of wonder at the swift passage of time that has brought us this far already.
     Christmas Break heralded its arrival with the return of Joel, Jared, and Jason Amundson from school to the soft plains and rolling hills of southern Wisconsin. Fresh snow lay blanketed across the landscape, traversing the noisome metropolis of West Allis to the subdued hamlets of Rock County and stretching all the way to the bustling cityscape of Rockford, Illinois, enveloping all the Midwest it seemed in its white, powdery embrace.
     Kristin began her two weeks off from work by leaving the school early on Friday the 17th so as to prepare for the kids’ activity at church which we were in charge of that night. I looked forward to the insanity to come with eager anticipation and tackled the evening headlong with feverish frivolity. I did not expect however to fulfill a similar role the following morning during Choir practice, but some of the kids waiting on their parents to finish singing were a little on the rambunctious side (understandably so, I mean). Seeing the nervous eyes of moms and dads darting back and forth from sheet music to their kids shouting and playing with reckless abandon, I took the bull by the proverbial horns and corralled the kiddies into the church lobby for semi-organized mayhem so as to leave the Choir in relative peace and quiet. Three important life lessons gleaned from those precious moments:

1. Wrestling with four- through six-year-olds will ultimately end in your defeat. You’re stronger than they are. But you will never, ever have the endurance or patience to suffer defeat after defeat that they do. You will win the first 400 battles, but they will win the war.*
2. As much as I love Star Wars: Battlefront 2, I’m absolutely terrible at it on PSP. I got pwned.** By the same four- through six-year-olds previously alluded to.
3. There are some Transformers which I simply do not know how to transform from robot mode to vehicle mode or vice versa. At risk of sounding old, they were a lot easier to figure out in the 80s. 

     After lunch with the Bixbys at an all-too-rare Taco Bell/Pizza Hut conglomeration, we returned to our fair jewel of the North Janesville for a few moments of downtime before heading back out to meet up with Tim and Lizzie Adam in Delavan. Dinner at Chili’s and engaging discussion on science fictional galactic politics and hypothetical space fleet engagements*** never lacks for fun in my book!
     Sunday witnessed the magisterial Christmas cantata at Morning Star which Kristin sang in and melted my heart. In a wonderfully providential turn of events, my dad and grandma visited to see the performance and were thanked by being paraded around by yours truly to be introduced to practically everyone who regularly attends. I’m so thankful they were able to hear beautiful music celebrating the majesty and awe of the Incarnation in addition to Jess Miller preaching on the preexistence and lordship of the newborn Jesus we are presented with in the Nativity story. And now everyone at church can put faces to the names, so it truly is a colossal win!
     We stayed in Rockford for lunch with Kristin’s mom and Anna before going back for the evening service to see the children’s Christmas program (arranged by Brian Hanson- kudos!). It was upon returning home that night that we made the awful discovery of Mrs. Hudziak’s passing. A tragic and inauspicious beginning to Christmas Break, indeed. Kristin’s presence was tremendous consolation in that dark time as we offered our farewells to the most precious of rodents in the history of the 21st century.
     Sadness gave way to joy soon afterwards however when Joel called me to join him and his clan in watching the Packer game (though that turned out to be a scandal and an outrage… I still don’t like talking about it) at their country manor in Milton. I stayed long after the (terrible) game was finished, talking, trying to render some characters with a new animation program Joel has, and watching videos of terrible guitarists shredding it up. When I say “terrible,” I don’t mean terrible in terms of technical ability, because these dudes can rip 64th note, sweep picked and/or tapped solos in B Lydian (with occasional forays into B Ionian just to show they really know what they’re doing) like no one’s business! It’s hilarious to watch, but is of precisely zero musical value to anyone with the emotional aptitude of a fifth grader. Needless to say, we giggled like giddy schoolgirls ‘til the wee hours of the morning.****
     Monday was spent lounging for the most part and sleeping in for the first time in a long time (what a novelty!), knowing what the rest of the week would hold for us: madness! Madness!
     We drove up to West Allis the following day to pick up Ben and Sarah so they could stay in Janesville for a few days and help around the house at Kristin’s parents’ in anticipation of Uncle Bob and Aunt Sandy coming to visit; this manifested itself as a three day odyssey in which significant headway was made with, as Winston Churchill once said, “blood, toil, tears and sweat.”***** We all grew closer to one another through our solidarity in giving Mom and Dad a hand; when the going got tough, we could take refuge in each other’s humor. Together we persevered. Sarah’s dog Chutney, however, couldn’t help out that much and lamentably found herself cooped up at our apartment whilst we labored at Mom and Dad’s, but soldiered on in those lonesome hours by seeking solace in the soothing R&B of our Motown mix CD. I’m pretty sure Chutney knows all the lyrics to “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” by the Four Tops by heart now.
     A few trips with Ben to Menard’s, Home Depot, Sears, Best Buy, and Ace Hardware later and we had new blinds but none of the appliances we went in search of in the first place! I also made my first solo voyage to the dump and was verbally accosted by four dudes which I in turn handled in a totally unbiblical manner via my quick wit. Later, I discovered I may have misunderstood their banter, interpreting it in the wrong light entirely and that they may in fact only have been giving me directions for proper dump etiquette. Shame on you, me!
     Our endeavors at Mom and Dad’s were brought to an earlier end Thursday as I had to work, so Kristin, Ben, Sarah, Anna and I took the opportunity to have lunch at Noodles and Co. (gotta love free lunch coupons!) and to finish some Christmas shopping so we could complete our inventories for the following day’s planned gift exchange in West Allis. That night, spent from the past few days’ efforts, we slept the sleep of champions, like cherubs in repose.
     I don’t really know what that last phrase means exactly… but suffice it to say, we slept well!
     Anyway, that takes us through Thursday the 23rd, and there’s far more yet to delve into, so stay tuned for more madcap hijinks, hilarious bedlam, zany misadventures, and clever turns of phrase should the Lord so will it.

 

*It’s kinda like a pre-K Vietnam if you think about it.
**They told me so, too, which is even more humiliating.
***If West Point ever offers this as a course, I would hope they’ll call me to teach it.
****Thank you, Michael Angelo Batio and your double neck, ambidextrous guitar skills.
*****Not “blood, sweat and tears” as it is so often misquoted.

 

Random Polemic, or "The Last 400 Years Have Been Great, But We've Hired New Help"

     Before I get to reviewing the last couple of weeks in a day or two, there's two things I suddenly find that I have to cover briefly:

1. You cannot with logical consistency be committed to the historico-grammatical interpretation of Scripture and claim that the dispensational hermeneutic is the only correct interpretation of Scripture.
2. You cannot claim that God has preserved His Word through the ages and claim that the Textus Receptus is the sole, true manuscript tradition preserving His Word.

     To confirm the first is to state that no interpretation of Scripture has been accurate in the least for the first 1,800 years of the New Testament's existence prior to the development of the dispensational school of thought; to confirm the second is to state that no one even had a Bible for over a thousand years while affirming at the same time that God has kept His Bible alive and intact! Unavoidable inconsistencies arise from both of these affirmations. An appeal to faith can be made to justify one or both of these positions, but a leap of faith in their direction is neither commanded by nor given reasonable justification from Scripture itself; their strict adherence has no biblical warrant nor substantiation.
     The historico-grammatical hermeneutic advocates a plain reading of what the text states according to its ordinary, grammatical meaning aided by an understanding of the writer's time and place and the terms, tone, and metaphors he or she thus uses; it has no place for the irresponsible allegorizing of the medieval age, nor for the hyperliteralism you witness in the circles which advocate the two points discussed above. While it is true that a plain reading of Scripture will most often offer a literal perspective on a particular passage, and while allegory is utilized in many distinct places throughout the Bible, it is a mistake to state absolutely that this or the other is the only manner in which Scripture as a whole must be understood. The key to determining a passage's intended meaning is dictated by the passage itself; Scripture interprets Scripture and will set the framework necessary for understanding not only a given text, but the entire organic unity of the Bible itself. This is the essence of the historico-grammatical hermeneutic, and basically means that you ride shotgun while Scripture takes the wheel and clues you in to what it's trying to say, not what you want it to say. Marrying this method of interpretation to a theology which envisions different modes of salvation throughout the course of human history is a slippery slope which, if followed through to conclusion, will crack the grammatico-historical lens and leave us blind in the wilderness.
     The Textus Receptus ("the Received Text"), to open the second can of worms, is kind of a joke. Not a good joke, though- it's like when your awkward uncle that no one particularly likes comes to your birthday party and laughs a little too hard when he remembers out loud (very loud) when your dog was put down on your birthday years ago. Something more along those lines. To begin with, there isn't even a Textus Receptus; several editions throughout the past five centuries have carried the name, many of them attempts to improve the text first delivered by the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, but there is no single edition of the text that is the alone, exclusively titled and identified Textus Receptus. Second, the TR is riddled with problems, problems we do not encounter through the study of manuscripts far more numerous and oftentimes far older than the texts Erasmus had at his disposal.
     The first published Greek New Testament appeared in 1516 and was an attempt to restore the Greek texts available to their Apostolic purity. Erasmus consolidated a tiny portion of manuscripts (seven!) which he had immediate access to in Basel, all of them belonging to the Byzantine textual family, and relied primarily upon two of them which dated from the twelfth century.1 It was not known as the Textus Receptus however until 1633 due to a notation in Latin on the cover of the second edition from its publishers Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevir (Textum ergo habes, nunc ad omnibus receptus, e.g. "Therefore you have the text now received by all." Kind of a letdown for an origin story, eh? I figured there would be at least one curse involved with a phrase as nefarious-sounding as that!).2 The term was applied to prior editions of the text and to the revisions thereof over the following century. For a parallel, think of Great Britain's constitution- they don't have one! They possess several documents stretching back nearly 1,000 years from which they regulate the processes and statutes of their government. In the same manner, "Textus Receptus" is a term retroactively applied to a series of related documents, having Erasmus' 1516 edition as their source.
     The many editions subsequent to the 1516 text are essentially reprints of the original as edited by Erasmus, with only minor variations on the part of scholars such as Theodore Beza and Robertus Stephanus. The editions themselves have an eerie similarity and uniformity about them due to the fact that they originate from Erasmus' text and are not the result of studying and compiling a multitude of Greek manuscripts; this is plainly evidenced by the numerous readings which are unique to Erasmus' text. These readings found exclusively with Erasmus are due to the meager availability of manuscript evidence he had to work with- in many instances, Erasmus did not have complete texts to compile (case in point: he had only one copy of Revelation, and it was missing six verses!), and when this occurred, he would back-translate the old Latin Vulgate to Greek.* Any peculiarities in the Vulgate reading thus found themselves in the Textus Receptus. Unfortunately, these peculiarities have no corroboration from any Greek manuscripts, meaning the TR is fundamentally flawed. In a more positive light, however, we are able to pinpoint these flaws with accuracy. When each of the old TRs are examined and unique readings such as "book of life" in Revelation 22:19 are discovered, we can know that it is a result of copying word-for-word Erasmus' edition (or one of its descendants) because every known Greek manuscript reads differently; "book of life" comes from the back-translation of the Vulgate, whereas every manuscript known to exist reads "tree of life."
     Understand now that I'm not bashing the King James version as such- I'm only trying to demonstrate the impossibility of logically maintaining the King James Only position. It can't be done. To insist that the "texts that underlie the King James Bible are the very words which God has preserved down through the centuries, being the exact words of the originals themselves"3 is far-fetched and not a little irresponsible in light of the facts.    
     Unfortunately, both of the aforementioned points often go hand in hand (not always, I readily admit, but by and large there is a correlation); the two streams many times will unite to form one confluence which floods over the orthodox doctrinal understandings recovered during the Reformation. It's almost inevitable that when sound principles of interpretation are abandoned our fallenness will wreak havoc with our theology. We will find grounds for unbiblical assumptions when we separate ourselves from the mainstream of orthodoxy stretching back to the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). And when non-adherence to these two points is seen as red flag for the need to be evangelized, something is terribly, terribly wrong.
     I know this will take me further afield then I originally intended with this post, but confirmation of the second point also runs counter to the published claims of the Authorized Version (KJV) translators themselves! Let's hear a little from these dudes. In the original preface to the 1611 Version they wrote,**

        Now to the later we answere: that wee doe not deny, nay wee affirme and auow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set foorth by men of our profession (for wee haue seene none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God. As the Kings Speech which hee vttered in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian and Latine, is still the Kings Speech, though it be not interpreted by euery Translator with the like grace, nor peraduenture so fitly for phrase, nor so expresly for sense, euery where.

     The phrase "the very meanest translation" denotes inferior translations, so take note of what is being said: even translations which did not conform to the scholarship and precise wording of the King James translators contain and are the word of God. This is devastating to the King James Only position and quite possibly a reason the Preface is no longer published with King James Versions anymore. Also take note:

        A man may be counted a vertuous man, though hee haue made many slips in his life, (els, there were none vertuous, for in many things we offend all) also a comely man and louely, though hee haue some warts vpon his hand, yea, not onely freakles vpon his face, but also skarres. No cause therefore why the word translated should bee denied to be the word, or forbidden to be currant, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it. For what euer was perfect vnder the Sunne, where Apostles or Apostolike men, that is, men indued with an extraordinary measure of Gods spirit, and priuiledged with the priuiledge of infallibilitie, had not their hand?

     "Forbidden to be current" means translated into the vernacular, i.e. the common speech of those who will be reading the translation. The translators clearly believed that it was essential that the text be understandable to the reader in a plain manner (which is consistent with Scriptural principle, e.g. 1 Corinthians 14:7-19. Paul here states that speaking in tongues will not edify the greater body of believers because their minds will not actively understand to the fullest what is being said- he then draws this principle out to song, prayer, and exhortation, and in so doing demonstrates that the mind must not be passive in any element of worship or spiritual service. The faculties of the mind must be engaged for anyone to be built up, otherwise the "mind is unfruitful" Paul says in verse 14. Your mind can't take a break if your goal is to glorify God and grow in the knowledge of the holy, in other words- this principle is plainly of great importance to this debate, as you can see.)

        Now through the Church were thus furnished with Greeke and Latine Translations, euen before the faith of CHRIST was generally embraced in the Empire : (for the learned know that even in S. Hieroms time, the Consul of Rome and his wife were both Ethnicks, and about the same time the greatest part of the Senate also) yet for all that the godly-learned were not content to haue the Scriptures in the Language which themselues vnderstood, Greeke and Latine, (as the good Lepers were not content to fare well themselues, but acquainted their neighbours with the store that God had sent, that they also might prouide for themselues) but also for the behoofe and edifying of the vnlearned which hungered and thirsted after Righteousnesse, and had soules to be saued as well as they, they prouided Translations into the vulgar for their Countreymen, insomuch that most nations vnder heauen did shortly after their conuersion, heare CHRIST speaking vnto them in their mother tongue, not by the voyce of their Minister onely, but also by the written word translated.

     Man- pwned! Any one of these guys would have been busted by modern KJO proponents for their heretical views on translation (among other points).*** The irony is murderous.
     I meant to only address the first two points briefly, but that obviously flew out the window pretty fast. In light of all this, though, let's resolve to keep our thinking caps on and discern with the Spirit's aid what is good and true and affirm that which God's Word does proclaim, for in embracing that we will guard ourselves from error. As promised, I'll cover highlights from the past two weeks in the days ahead, so stay tuned, eh?****


*Pretty bogus way to arrive at a Greek New Testament if you ask me! But then again, I haven't contributed anything meaningful to the Church as of yet, so maybe I need to just cool it...
**I'm really sorry about all the Middle English here, but... it does look kinda cool, dunnit?
***Need I mention that none of these gentlemen were Dispensationalists either? (Sorry- was that below the belt?)
****"Eh?" West Allis is really rubbing off on me.

1 William W. Combs, Erasmus and the Textus Receptus, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, DBSJ 1 (Spring 1996): 35–53
2  Douglas Kutilek. (May 24, 1996). Westcott & Hort vs. Textus Receptus: Which is Superior?
3   D.A. Waite, Defending the King James Bible (Collingswood, NJ: Bible For Today Publishers, 1992), 48–49.