Paying Taxes

Well, 'ole Warren Buffett (the richest man in the world) is at it again. He complains that he does not pay enough tax. This is just his latest installment in foolishness. As for his complaint, I would think he is better at number crunching than he appears to be. If the top 96% of federal taxes are paid by the top 50% of wage earners, how is that unfairly tilted towards the rich? This means that roughly HALF of the American population does not pay income tax.

To break down the figures even more:
-The top 1% (The extremely wealthy) pay 34% of the US tax burden.
-The top 5% pay 54% of the US tax burden.
-The top 10% pay 66% of the US tax burden.

In my home state of Virginia, a special fund was set up just for people like Warren Buffett to pay more taxes when they felt under taxed. Guess what? The fund has received a paltry few thousand dollars over its lifetime. Sad.

To all of my wealthy liberal friends, feel free at any time to write a check for whatever you believe you owe the government over and above your tax burden. Ted Kennedy, Leo DiCaprio, Jim Wallis, Hillary Clinton, John Two-Americas Edwards, Al Gore...hello anyone.

Where are we now... an update

Hello all
so we thought we'd give you a bit of an update as to where we are now:

A couple weeks ago both Mac's dad and Melissa's grammie fell and broke their hips. If it weren't for the amount of pain and frustration that comes with having a broken hip, it could be said that Grammie was trying to keep up with Winston (as she fell the day after he did). Thankfully they are both recovering well now. They've both had their surgeries and are in rehab -- Mac's dad was able to get a bed in the rehab/nursing home where they have a condo (he'll be going home once he's up and around again) and Grammie was able to return to her room at Christie Gardens where the physio will work with her. They are both relieved to be out of the hospitals.

Due to the fall and fracture, Mac and I headed down to Virignia Beach a week and a half earlier than expected. So we've spent some time with his parents, have enjoyed biking on the boardwalk by the beach (its still quite warm down here) and have been working around the house. Mac has started cleaning out cluttered spaces, and i am continuing to pull together the fundraising campaign. The change of pace has been nice!

We head back to Toronto on Oct. 29th (so i can start work at Blythwood the next day). By then i should be finished the major development work of the campaign and we (there are 3 of us working on it) will be sending it to three churches and one missionary family for a preview and feedback. Its exciting to see it come together!

hope you're all doing well

Handing out birthcontrol.... in middle school ?!

Usually Mac uses this blog to rant, but today its my turn!
We're in VA again (which is beautiful and lovely) and today while we were out running around doing errands we had talk radio on. The announcer on the radio was talking about a middle school in Portland, Maine. It seems that there has been an increase in pregnancies among middle school aged girls (17 pregnancies in 4 middle schools over the past few years) and so a school in Portland, Maine has joined the ranks of one in Baltimore, MD and Seattle, WA in making birth control available to children in middle school. That's right they are giving children 11-13 birth control, condoms and other contraceptive devices ... and while parents have to consent to their children attending the medical clinic, they are not allowed to know what happens there with their child -- confidentiality and all that.

Ok, so children are having sex ... we must make it safe for them, right? WHAT?! Has no one stopped to ask the question as to WHY children, yes that's right CHILDREN, not young adults, or teens, are having sex? Have we stopped to examine the culture these children are being raised in where it is permissible for kids to have sex? No, we simply make it easier or them!

Now i know that there are many in this society that would call me all sorts of names for thinking that sex and marriage go together, and sex should only happen in the context of marriage, but regardless of that.... i think most people would find the idea of children having sex disgusting. And quite frankly, i think that a society that condones such behaviour is at best irresponsible.

Children 11-13 are children and we should be protecting their innocence. Its still an age where girls play with barbies (or at least i did), and maybe guys play with G.I Joes. They are starting to realize that the opposite gender may not have as many cooties as we had originally thought. Over all the world is good, life is happy (though school work gets in the way), and recess is the highlight of the day. Shouldn't we as adults be protecting that reality for children? Allowing them to be kids for as long as possible, because we know this world will take their innocence soon enough?

As i think about my good friend's almost 10yr old daughter, it pains me to think that in just a couple years, if she went to the right school, she could be getting the pill. It is frustrating to think that kids think that sex is an appropriate pass time. Why has this happened?? How do we turn the tide and let kids be kids again? Perhaps this is evidence that the amoral teaching of sex ed isn't working the way educators thought it would and maybe, just maybe, telling kids to wait is not a bad thing? Kids should be kids, not engaging in activities to make more kids....

God provides again!

It really is amazing how God provides! Last week (or so) i was moaning to Mac that soon (the end of October) the bulk of the work for the fundraising campaign that i'm working on will be finished and then i wasn't sure what i would do with my time. Well then this week we hear from my parents that their church secretary and her hubby are going on vacation for 3 weeks to visit their daughter in Australia and needs someone to fill in while she's away. Her first thought was to see if Mac or I could fill in for her. With Mac being a US citizen it complicates him taking the job, so I will be working at Blythwood part-time as the secretary (something i did when i was 18 for 4 or so months) and Mac will fill in when i have meetings and commitments with the campaign that i need to fulfill. It is wonderful to have the added income just before the holidays and i must say, i am very excited to have something else "to do" so that i don't drive myself and Mac crazy!

God is good and He truly is our provider!

Such a good day -- we find out our marriage certificate is in the mail AND God also provides a temporary job!! Thank you Lord!

We're finally married!!!

the title of this blog may give you pause. You may think, wait i thought they got married back at the beginning of August?! Wasn't that what the white dress, and the service and the big party was about?? And wasn't that celebrated again on Sept. 16th?? Well you would be right in that thinking, but until yesterday, Oct. 15th, our marriage hadn't been registered with the province. Yep that's right, it takes 10 weeks to fill in a few blanks in a marriage license that's already on file with the province. But all is good -- now we are recognized as married by the province and the papers are in the mail to us! Soon I will be able to finish changing my name on the rest of my documents, and more importantly, we have the last piece of paper (almost) that we need to send off our visa application.

So next steps:
We're heading to VA on Wednesday (oct 17th), so we won't be here when our documents arrive. But we're going to be leaving our visa package all read to go with the exception of the marriage license with my (Melissa's) parents so they can pop everything in the mail for us while we're away.

Once everything has been received, we'll get notification of that, a file number (so we can track stuff online) and notice of what we have to do next. There will probably be an interview at some point (we think in Montreal) and who knows what other hoops to jump through... but at least we're (almost) one more step ahead!

:)

Elitism

I don't know why this frosts me so much because I am not very surprised. Democrat staffers in the House of Representatives received immunizations against hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza for a fact finding mission to the Amazon Basin. Why does this get my blood boiling? I myself have been immunized when I have traveled to countries where infection is highly possible.

If only these liberals were going to such a remote area. They are not going deep into the wilds of the Amazon Jungle, they are headed for North Carolina specifically to a NASCAR race. I guess the simpleness of NASCAR fans scares the liberal politician. These fans don't ride in limousines, they stand for the National Anthem, and bow their head at the prayer of invocation. All frightening stuff to liberal elitists. Perhaps these liberals are worried about being in the South; a place that doesn't much care for liberal holier-than-thou elitism and constantly votes against government intrusion. Maybe the Dems believe that type of thinking is contagious.

"Christians" in the media

I have pretty much gotten to the place that i don't expect the media to depict Christians as anything other than idiots, fundamentalist freaks, or as people with a simple, narrow-minded and bigoted world view. Unfortunately this is the reality for Christians in the media, for the most part anyways. But every so often I see things that frustrate me!

There are three shows that Mac and I try to make sure we watch because we enjoy then: House, Shark and CSI (Las Vegas). Shark doesn't tend to deal with religion at all, but faith and religion are semi-frequent themes in the other two shows. This past week on CSI (i'm sorry if i ruin this for you) featured the case of an entire family that was murdered, save for one girl who was apparently kidnapped. The first suspect in the case was a man who had formerly been convicted for sexual crimes (sorry, can't remember what) and the crime scene matched his prior "handy work." Well one the investigators caught up with this man he was now a reverend, serving the broken in society. Of course, the investigators don't trust this "new persona" and continue to investigate him. Now I really really wish he was just a run of the mill pastor, but, of course, he is performing (and documenting) exorcisms on people!! Give me a break!! This is NOT a usual part of ministry these days!! (Its not that maybe they aren't needed in some cases, but in Canada they don't seem to be the norm.) Anyways, the show completely depicted this pastor as a lunatic and at the end of the show, he throws the once-missing girl over the balcony in order to free her of the demons. And as he's arrested, all he's saying is "I saved her."

GIVE ME A BREAK!!!! First of all, if an exorcism is needed, it has nothing to do with the person performing the exorcism -- any "success" is purely derived from the person and authority of Jesus Christ and Him a lone! And pastors are not demented lunatics!! Please CSI, for once, could you have some "real" pastors on you show? I remember a nun who killed a woman, and other religious people who have done bad things on that show.... nothing even slightly realistic to life. CSI has made the Madame of a S&M brothel look normal and well adjusted, but pastors are always the lunatics with the issues!

At least with House, there's always skepticism about faith, but it is portrayed in a somewhat more balanced perspective. The character with faith is naive maybe, but usually not an idiot (although there was one show where a young 15 yr old had the ability to divinely cure people, but his powers turned out to come from having genital herpes).

bah! common people!!

ALGORE May Get the Nobel Peace Prize

...But it will be just as worthless as Yassir Arafat's. We all know that Arafat got 90% of what he asked for during the land for peace negotiation with Israel. However, Arafat walked away from the 1998 Wye River table and called on his thugs to start killing Jews again (specifically blowing up women and children on buses). I am not saying Gore is Arafat; I'm casting doubt on the Nobel Institute. It is clearly a form-over-substance institution.

Anyway, in Britain the courts have determined that "An Inconvenient Truth" is political propaganda. Read the excerpt from junkscience.com below for details:

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that:

1. The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.
2. If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.
3. Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The specified inaccuracies are:

• The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming.
  The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
• The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years.
  The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
• The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming.
  The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
• The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming.
  The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
• The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice.
  It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
• The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age
  The Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
• The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching.
  The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
• The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously.
  The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
• The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting
  
The evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
• The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people.
  In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
• The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand.
  The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim

UPDATE

Al Gore has won the Noble Propaganda prize and the BBC has a shockingly honest report on what was posted above. I like the final comment which basically condones lying if you can win a political argument.


mac

Obama Almighty

Barack Obama, the savior of the Religious Left when it comes to politics, has declared his intent to create a "Kingdom right here on earth." Finally, the radical religious left will have its chance at establishing a proper theocracy. We all know that GW Bush is not the right kind of Christian (or he is too much the 'right' kind of Christian). Why, he is way to patriotic to be a real follower of Jesus. But when Barak declares his intention to bring in the Kingdom, we cannot help but stand up and cheer, "Our savior is here!" Well, at least Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo will do enough cheering for me.

This is probably the most theocratic statement I have heard from a candidate since Pat Robertson ran for Pres. I wonder if the same people in the media, academia and religion will take Obama to task for desiring to set up a New Theocracy the same way they deride Christian politicians who simply try to get the country to stop killing babies?



mac

The Preferred people of God ?!

It seems these days that there are many people who argue that God has a preferred group of people that He loves more. Recently i was at a church service in which a passage of Scripture was preached from Deuteronomy. The person preaching noted that the text shows that God loves the fatherless, widows and aliens (foreigners) more than others. There are some that argue that God prefers the poor to the rich, that He loves them more than others. But is this really the case?? Yes Jesus touched the lives of those who were disenfranchised by poverty, health and cultural backgrounds, but does that mean he loves them more??

Today i was working on a sermon from Deuteronomy 10:12-22 for the fundraising Campaign. For those wondering, the passage answers the question: "What does God want from me?" In it we are called to love, serve and fear the Lord, to hold fast to Him, and to love the alien. This passage does an amazing Job of defining who God is: He is Yahweh your God (often translated Lord your God), God of Gods, Lord of Lords, great God, mighty and awesome, who owns all of the heavens and the earth and all that is in it, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He is also the God who chose to show affection to Israel, and defends the cause of the widows, fatherless and the aliens.

So what is going on here? Does God have partiality or not? He chose the Israelites out of all the peoples of the world to be "His people." And singled out of His acts are his defense of those who are disenfranchised. A quick survey of Israelite history would show that while the Israelites are chosen by God, they are not given partial treatment: they have to answer for their sins towards God, not given any kind of leniency. God may have been patient in calling a disobedient nation to repentance numerous times before punishing them, but He did not relent when the sin continued. This is an aspect of God's love and mercy rather than preferential treatment.

But what of the widows, orphans and aliens? Those who are on the outside of the Israelite community? This too goes to speak to God's character. Unlike other gods who were regional/territorial, limited and power and could be bought on bribes, God (Yahweh) does not ignore the "lessers" of society. Rather than spiting them, He defends them and cares for them. Other so-called gods show mercy etc. to those who can pay for it. Yahweh cares for those who cannot "buy" His affections. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE MORE IMPORTANT IN HIS EYES, or that the kingdom is JUST for those who are impoverished, it means that the kingdom includes them! God's defense of the powerless, those who have no way to earn His defense of them, speaks to HIS character, not a greater worth by those who are disenfranchised or a preference for poor people on the part of God.

But then, let's think about this on another level. Really, who is in a position to "earn" God's defense? Who is good enough, strong enough, smart enough, pure enough on their own to earn His love and defense? Romans is clear -- ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us are aliens in the kingdom of God, because we first were citizens of the world, but have been welcomed into it by God and those who serve Him. Aren't we all disenfranchised in some way, regardless of our income level?

Do the poor need to hear the gospel? YES!! And so do the rich, and all those in between those two classes of people. Let's stop focusing on God's "preferred people" and bring God's full gospel to all peoples.


melissa

Melissa's update

Recently Mac's been doing all of the blogging, so i thought i should take a moment and update people on what's been going on in my portion of the Davis world.

God provided a job which is perfect for our situation right now, and I am so thankful! While its not exactly what I thought i would do right out of seminary, it is a fantastic opportunity. I am working for the Ontario Mennonite Brethren Board of Church Extension to develop a fundraising campaign for gateway churches in Ontario. At this point the MBs just have 2 gateway churches, both of which are in toronto, but they are doing awesome work! It is amazing to be able to see how God is using these two very different churches to build His kingdom. The two lead church planters for these ministries are also working with me on the campaign, which is also amazing. Tara and Shawn are gifted and passionate people who long to see God glorified in their communities.

Through this "job" i get to spend time with both of the churches, seeing what they do and interacting with their communities a bit. I also get to put my theological and homeletical (ie. preaching) talents to good use as I develop sermon plans (not full scripts or outlines) and Bible studies for churches to used during the campaign if they so choose. I also get to revisit my youth ministry days by pulling together some youth events that coordinate with the campaign. New skills will also be developed as we work together to create brochures, videos and other media resources for the churches in Ontario to make use of.

This campaign is really exciting me. It is an awesome opportunity for people within and outside of the MB church to pull together as the greater body of Christ and support these churches who are reaching out to those who have immigrated to Canada and desperately need to experience God's love and hear from Him. I am excited to see what God will do with the campaign -- where He will take it, and how it will effect the lives of all who participate in it.

Art, What is It?...No Really, This is a Legitimate Question.

I just attended an all night art festival in downtown Toronto. The concept was really inventive. The crowds were huge. Some of the 'art' however was less than stellar. My favorite was the bunch of balloons with a string of lights attached. They were supposed to be diamonds shimmering in the sky. Another great 'installation' was on Globull Warming with the proactive message of 'How are you going to cool the Earth?' Read my post below. Do you see the arrogance in the notion that I control the climate?

There were some pieces I enjoyed. However, I don't understand what makes something art. For one, who decides what is art? Second, who decides what is good art? Finally, what is the point of art? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that we are very uncritical of artists and their art. At Regent, art was exalted and anything artistic was acceptable. Now, they have built an artistic wind tower. For a cool million bucks, Regent is the talk of Canada. Great, but I am going to be a bit critical. Why not hire another faculty member or two? Classes are way overcrowded and a chief complaint of students is the lack of face time with professors.

Back to Toronto. It seemed that any and everything could be considered art. So much so that at the end of the evening as we passed a couple of toilets (yes actual units) decorating the sidewalk I made a joke about the artistic qualities of these pieces of sanitation equipment. They were not actually part of the show, but with a number and a description who knows. Having read the description of several installations, the chief end of art seemed to be to explore, to raise awareness or create discussions about whatever. I think the best part of the night was the almost-full moon rising over the city. It stopped many people in their tracks, including me.


mac

Current Debates Within Christianity

I think the best is: JUSTICE. Left Wing Politics, Duh!

mac