Inevitability & the LCMS
An always interesting topic is that of when the LCMS will degenerate to the point that women will be officially allowed to call themselves “pastors” (note: I did not say “become”, because even if/when the LCMS blesses such sinful usurpation, said women will most certainly NOT actually be pastors…).
Tim, over at Balaam’s Ass, and Christopher, over at Outer Rim Territories, have made some nice comments & observations on this topic (Tim having started it all, while Christopher used Tim’s posting as a nice reason for commenting…). The comments are really nothing new — rather, they shouldn’t be seen as anything new — but given the dearth of orthodox (i.e., Lutheran) catechesis & discipline in today’s Ablaze!-ing (pat. pending, all rights reserved, the Purple Palace) LCMS, it wouldn’t surprise me that a great many folks would be aghast — aghast, I tell you! — that there are actually curmudgeonly troglodytes who would twist — twist, I tell you! — the Bible to subjugate — subjugate, I tell you! — women.
I kid because I love. I tell the truth — women cannot be pastors, and even if they call themselves such, it don’t make it so! — also because I love. And we must exert proper discipline because we — as the Bible calls us to do — love. Even when, as Kansas so aptly put it, Love Hurts. (But remember — Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that, as J. Geils so pithily proclaimed, Love Stinks! :razz:)
In the end, I agree with the good seminarians from CSSL (Tim) and CTSFW (Christopher), that it is pretty much a sure thing that women will be ordained at some point in the LCMS. And I don’t think that it’s going to take all that terribly long to happen. Eventually, those who will demand it will no longer be kept quiet/held in check by those who want to wield the “power” of a non-sundered organization. And when that happens (and it will), all bets will be off, and a whole lot of folks who didn’t want to prepare to make an informed decisions will be unjustifiably shocked — shocked, I tell you! 
— that such problems could sneak up on them with no warning.
-ghp
What If?
I’m a big fan of Alternate/Counterfactual History, so I like “What If?” questions.
The Burr in the Burgh has a very nice posting about an extremely fascinating “What If?” — “What If Jesus Returned Today?” Not in the sense of the 2nd Coming, mind you, but rather what if He just showed up & commented on the theological assumptions that are commonly held these days…
It’s a very interesting question, and Pr. Stiegemeyer does a nice job of fleshing out just what might happen, and why we should in no way feel superior to the folks who so quickly & easily sold Jesus out back in the day. I happen to agree with him that, as much as I would like to think & hope that I wouldn’t shrink from the challenge, it’s almost a sure thing that I would — unless God, in His wisdom, saw fit to strengthen me for His purposes. IOW, if it were left up to me & my sinful will, I’d make Peter in the courtyard look like a hero for the ages.
In any event, there is a part of me that would just love to see this particular “What If?” happen, if only to see how so many “Christians” would handle the direct challenge to their dearly held heterodoxies! But I somehow think that such a desire is merely an indication of why I would fail were I presented with a situation like Peter’s…
-ghp
AI:5 - The Denver Auditions
Ok, much like Sherman in Atlanta, the AI:5 producers unleashed their fury upon Denver last night.
Side note: I wasn’t quite as cranky while watching the Denver auditions. An email exchange with my beloved sister (the lovely Robin) gave birth to a great word for the combination of my state of mind & the write-up that said mood yielded — a Crankinalysis! I like that word so much, I might have to develop a scale, so that I can assign a crankinalysis (pat. pending) number/level to my recaps… 
Anyway, Denver wasn’t as annoying to me, perhaps because they kept the carnage limited to a single hour. As per the norm, they focused on the odd, the bad, & the ugly, rather than the good, the talented, & the pretty. One undeniable exception to this was the 16 y/o cutie Lisa Tucker! I truly can’t imagine a 16 y/o being mature enough to weather the 5 month storm that is the AI trek to the Kodak Theater; however, if one could, it seems like Lisa might be the one! She’s definitely one to watch.
Token “rocker” Chris Daughtry bears watching, at least through the Hollywood phase of the auditions. We’ll have to see how he handles the pressure, both of the competition and of his/his wife’s expectations. I have him tabbed as a good, solid, mid-semifinalist.
As for the “inexplicably put through” category, I’d have to put two folks in there. First, April Walsh - she of the super bubbly personality, horrific flowered print dress, & Bjork song. She had a nice enough voice, from what I could tell (Bjork songs really aren’t that conducive to evaluating vocal talent…), and she certainly has personality to burn. But her getting through still puzzles me. I guess she strikes me as an Amy Adams (AI:3) type — potentially a solid late-semifinalist. Second, cowboy & turkey serenader Garett Johnson. He struck me as painfully non-social (not anti-social, but rather someone who just hasn’t had a whole lot of experience in interacting with people). There was a hint of a good voice (which for some reason seemed to really intrigue Simon), that could be cultivated by a good long stint of vocal training; however, I don’t think that’s going to happen by the time he gets to Hollywood. I think he’ll be an early cut in Hollywood.
Finally, the bizarre — delusional she-male Zachary. And I do mean delusional - on several levels. If you saw it, you know what I’m talking about wrt the “she-male” bit — frankly, it scares me enough that I don’t want to write any more to try and describe it. 
Vocally, “he” was just about as muddled & bad. That “his” mother seemed to feed “his” delusions by calling “him” (in a candidate for understatement of the millennium) eccentric, was just sad, truly sad. (I gotta think that mom wanted a daughter, and was willing to sacrifice her son to get one…). Zachary’s post-rejection reaction was so over-the-top delusional, it defied reason. To call the judges “racist” & “prejudiced” is far, far beyond absurd. It belies an insulting ignorance of what “racist” & “prejudiced” mean. The only people the judges are prejudiced against, are those who have no discernible talent. And in a talent competition, that ain’t unacceptable, now is it?
Next week: 2 hours of folks debasing themselves at the Greensboro Coliseum. Having lived down there, I can only imagine the carnage to which we will be exposed…
-ghp
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AI:5 - The Chicago Auditions
Well… that was, shall we say, underwhelming, wasn’t it?
Two hours was taken up in telling us that 34 people made it through from Chicago to Hollywood.
And I can’t say that any of the 34 that we were allowed to see/hear impressed me all that much. I liked the first set of twins (the heavyset guys, not the 16 year-olds who serenaded Paula — btw, did that strike anyone else as odd? I mean, come on, they’d just been born when Paula was at her most popular — do you think they knew/know of her for anything other than AI? Nope, me neither…), and there was maybe one girl shown who could be good enough to matter later in the competition.
Overall, though, there was no one who jumped out at me like Carrie did last season. And, yes, I am asserting that I thought Carrie could/would go far in the competition right from when I saw her during the audition shows last season — she struck me as being that good looking and that good of a singer. Bo, well we didn’t even get to see him until the end of the Hollywood auditions, as the “rocker” focus to that point was on Constantine “Poseuroulis.” 
So, while it’s prudent not to invest too much capital in trying to ID the real talent during the auditions (because the producers like to play games with us), it’s still interesting to tuck a few observations away for later use in the always 20-20 hindsight analysis…
I’ll leave you with this — I was most appalled by the 16 y/o Paris Hilton look-alike/wannabe, and not (just) because of who/what she was trying to look & act like. No, I was more appalled by her mother. Quite honestly, the mother looked worse than the daughter — she looked like she was trying to out “hip”/”cool”/”hottie” the daughter, and she failed miserably. All she looked like was a used-up whore, but one who thought she still had “it.” And one who was more than willing to craft her daughter into a “new & improved” version of what she had been and/or wanted to be. Sad, sad, sad…
Man, watching that show last night made me crankier than I realized… (though it certainly didn’t help my mood when the TV started acting up right when we went to start watching the Tivo’ed recording of AI:5. Even worse, the set is 2 days out of the extended warranty, and is most likely going to end up costing a few hundred $$$ in repairs, since it’ll cost $100 just to get someone out to take a look at it — it’s too big for anything but in-home service… :cry:)
-ghp
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