Disqus - Latest Comments for simeonf

Re: metapundit.net - Dr. David Wells and Ecclesiology

brucedanielson — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:10:55 -0000

Thanks for the response, Simeon. Yes, please do get back to me if you come
up with any ideas. In the meantime, I emailed Derek Flood (sharktacos) with
this question. He said he wasn't much into tracts but that his video,
"Emelia"carried the Christus Victor theme.
"Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow..."
"Jesus knows all about our troubles"
"Christ in you, the hope of glory"
"Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God's own choosing" -- Yes,
I think a tract could be made out of the ideas in Martin Luther's "A Mighty
Fortress" hymn.
Thanks, again
Bruce

Re: simeonfranklin.com - Off to present at Baypiggies again

simeonf — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:19:01 -0000

Thanks Bhushan!

Re: metapundit.net - Dr. David Wells and Ecclesiology

simeonf — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:51:06 -0000

Wow that's a great question bruce!

I'm going to think a bit about how to answer it - i share your distaste for Chick tracts and it would be great if you could provide a better way of communicating the gospel.

While I don't have an immediate answer I do have a site to recommend - http://www.sharktacos.com/God/ has one of the best essays I've ever read on Christus Victor and the author is a animator of some kind. He might have resources to recommend.

I'm not leaving you with that though - I will think about this and get back to you...

Re: bitquabit - local_settings.py Considered Harmful

simeonf — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:01:23 -0000

local_settings.py doesn't have to be harmful. I usually have one directory up from my project in version control and use fabric for deployment. My directory structure looks like:
- virtualenv
- proj_dir
-- django_site
---- settings.py
-- host1.local_settings.py
-- host2.local_settings.py
-- fabfile.py

My fabfile deployment rules transfer the appropriate local_settings.py file for the host I'm deploying to - and everything is under version control...

Re: metapundit.net -

zstock — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:48:12 -0000

That's hot! I thought Disqus had some sort of roll-It was interesting following him around for a minute, He's finding sites that are talking about Disqus--
I like this new Disqus format, btw--

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:29:46 -0000

I see the comment in his profile page on Disqus though. Why the interest in a spam account with identical comments?

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:27:15 -0000

Disqus automatically marked his comment as spam and it never showed up on my site...

Re: metapundit.net -

mtinsley — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:21:51 -0000

I'm actually an elephant trainer now. I joke. I'm still in PHP land. I work for a company in Grapevine, TX. I am their main PHP developer for this website: http://turbineupdate.com. I left my dirt bike in California because I had an accident when I was there where I came within 1/4" of paralysis from the chest down. So I only ride it when I'm home visiting my parents; which resulted in a dislocated patella earlier this year :). I am learning and growing, Thank God.

Re: metapundit.net -

mtinsley — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:09:37 -0000

I am still in PHP land. I've been working for a company called Dallas Airmotive (http://www.bbaaviationero.com/) here in Grapevine, TX. I am the main PHP guy for their CRM/CARs/Maintenance... externally facing program for sales guys, guys in the shop and customers (https://www.turbineupdate.com/). I've been working here since January 2007. It is an excellent job. I am so grateful. I left my dirt bike in California when I moved out here. I had an accident in Oct. 2006 that nearly paralyzed me so I only ride occasionally now (dislocated my patella March this year while riding my old dirt bike in Santa Clara).

Matt is a great leader. God has blessed me sooooo much.

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:55:18 -0000

Mark! It's good to hear from you - I wonder what you're up to every now and then... Are you still doing web dev work or are you a pro dirt bike rider by now?

I'm glad you're going to Matt Chandler's Church - he seems like a solid guy to me...

Re: metapundit.net - Dr. David Wells and Ecclesiology

simeonf — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:43:00 -0000

I guess we'll find out about the death of evangelicalism - get back to me in a decade or two and we'll see. As to Willow Creek (mentioned in the interview) - I sort of agree! Anybody who has the guts to study what they're doing wrong and talk about it publicly is doing something right, big time.

On the other hand - watch Hybel's summary of the Reveal study (http://revealnow.com/story.asp?storyid=49). I see much of the Church going down the same path - seeing "doing Church" as mostly participation in cool, attractive (and expensive) programs that don't help them become mature and make them increasingly dependent on programs (consumers) instead of becoming mature believers. And of course Reveal was extended to 30 other Churches as well to see if there was a general trend or if it was specific to Willow Creek. Yup!

Nice link - I like what I've read so far...

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:27:45 -0000

It's so worth it - I took some over to my parents yesterday to try and my dad said it reminded him of fresh bread from Panera. I'm out of the dough right now but I'm going to make another batch to keep my fridge stocked...

The only changes I'm making to the basic recipe, btw, is to use an upside-down cast iron skillet instead of a bread stone (I broke my stone and haven't replaced it) and to cook for more like 45 minutes - the two might be related...

Re: metapundit.net -

Jeshua — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:42:56 -0000

Yes, that's the altarpiece I was referring to. And you're right, I think metaphor is a better word than model or theory.

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:53:59 -0000

>one altarpiece by Renaissance artist Robert Campin depicts Joseph in his carpenter's shop making mouse traps. The symbolism refers to an idea popular at the time (which you briefly alluded to): the cross was the trap, Jesus was the bait, and Satan went for it.

This one? http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Imag...

Yeah the bait/trap imagery was new to me (though common in the patristic fathers, Augustine, etc). And I agree with McLaren: I prefer to use the term "metaphors" rather than models because I think it makes what we're doing clear. All we can do is attempt to shed some insight on a mystery by making analogy: it is "like" this, like "that". Having the idea of metaphor in mind also frees us to do what Greene wants - contextualise the gospel with new metaphors. The idea isn't to throw out the old ones (I think we should give primacy to way scripture talks about the atonement), but we can also think creatively about it - the metaphors aren't a "this is the way it works end of story" explanation.

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:16:24 -0000

Eh - thanks for the catch Van Gale - I have a require line as well and have updated the post to reflect this. I should also have noted that I'm running Emacs 23 on Ubuntu 8.10.

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:48:56 -0000

Yeah - and I followed the comments on the topic on one of the posts Marin commented on. I think it was the Civility post.

I don't have enough of a handle on what Marin does to comment. I thought his post was fine as far as the mechanics of handling conflict on this issue. Actually what you said:

A gay person tends to see their being and their acting as inexorably linked together, so they will tend to perceive a church that says it welcomes them but not their behavior as the same as rejecting them entirely.

Is to me the most difficult issue in relating to gay Christians - and I think it's where "A Way Out of the Sex Cult" has some valuable perspective for the Church. How can we challenge gay's not to define wholly by their sexuality when we encourage heteros, marrieds, etc to do so. If the Church has no witness to refusing to be defined by sexuality, no witness for being willing to suffer with those whose faithfulness to Christ will entail suffering (think divorce, for example), we end up as hypocrites. On this sin alone we require people to give up their self identity and find identity in Christ...

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:05:50 -0000

As to the interpretation of Romans - I don' t have the book he footnotes so I'm not absolutely sure I follow the argument. But the general idea that Paul is quoting a position and disputing it can be seen at http://theogeek.blogspot.com/2008/07/romans-118...

Apparently this passage is similar to "The Wisdom of Solomon" chapters 13-14. I'm not convinced necessarily that this implies Paul is deploying it ironically, or even that he is deliberately mimicking it. (Paul does like to quote and sometimes the trick in figuring out what he's saying is recognising when he's quoting and not. cf 1 Corinthians).

I don't think the writer's overall point necessarily has to hang on this interpretation of Romans 1. The attitude of the NT towards sexuality, marriage, and procreation is definitely more ambivalent than that of the Old. Many Christians (see the full-quiver people) don't recognise this and still have the sex-cult thing going (and of course that's only the extreme of the general Christian attitude towards marriage and sex.) I'm less certain about the specifics of his analysis of Greek sexual ethics and Paul's rejection except to say that I think the analysis applies in our day:

"Paul’s understanding of participation in the messiah works to free the body from the constructs of virile society... In Paul’s anthropology, Christ becomes what is deepest about us and not our sex."

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:38:32 -0000

Glad you liked it - sorry your comment didn't show up for a bit... I'm still figuring out Disqus' moderation stuff. And of course I haven't had that many comments yet!

I'm thinking about your Colson/fasting/ecology post...

Re: metapundit.net -

Justin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:43:41 -0000

Someone I know posted a series of articles on Bonhoeffer. You might be interested, see http://metapundit.net/sections/bonhoeffer

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:06:59 -0000

Ooh - good linkage. One would think I'd have remembered the Bonhoeffer comment on Luther...

Re: metapundit.net -

simeonf — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:57:39 -0000

I'm not sure what you're uncomfortable with in Spencer's take (unless it's just not fully exploring the question). I suspect (to answer your last questions first) that the link between the decline of the Western Church and the growth of the non-Western Church is that the non-Western Church is not insulated from reality by wealth. It wouldn't suprise me (not having read much current Church sociology) if the non-Western Church is less orthodox but more orthoprax (can I use the word like that?)

I think in some ways IMonk is less the church sociologist (predicting declines based on the numbers) than he is a Jeremiah - noting all the idolatry in Evangelicalism and anticipating it's decline...

It's also worth pointing out his recent "The Antidote to the Coming Evangelical Collapse" where he talks about an Anglican Church plant in Virginia that is part of the "Anglican Church in North America" recognised by the Nigerian Anglican Church but not the Episcopal Church. He talks a little about dynamism (to steal Virginia Postrel's phrase) that it seems the Non-Western Church has but the Western Church has lost:

What really excites me here is how this is the influence of Keller’s work at Redeemer Church on the newly liberated Anglicans. Do you have any idea what it is like to talk church planting in many mainline and older denominations? I’ve observed it up close and I’ve heard it over and over. When the “we own it all” denominations are given a choice to plant a new church or prop up an older one, they seem to have almost no idea why it is the better thing to act like Christians and plant the new church.

The diversion of leaders, resources and energy to existing churches is only wise when those churches are committed to sending and sustaining. If they want to “soak” up those resources, it’s an installment on a doomed future.

New churches will attract new people. Young churches will have young people. Future oriented churches will have a future. Missional churches will create missional leaders. This isn’t advanced math.

I'm still thinking about the idea of a theology of church extinction...

Re: NewEgg is hard to get on the phone (Scripting News)

simeonf — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:32:32 -0000

AH! I had this exact thing happen to me!

Don't get me wrong, I love Newegg. Their shipping is usually rocket fast, good prices, and user reviews for electronics are really helpful. However -

I ordered a DVD Drive/Burner for my parents computer (yes - I am my family's tech support guy). I got a tracking number, didn't much pay attention to it, and ten days later realised I never got it. When I looked at UPS it said that the customer requested a pickup at the UPS facility, didn't pick it up in the required 3 days and it was sent back. Newegg refunded my money (including shipping) so that was nice, but I definietly didn't request a pickup! My guess is that it's a UPS screwup...

Re: Bootstrapping thumbnails for photo apps (Scripting News)

simeonf — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 01:04:22 -0000

My bad - I haven't ever implemented oembed but remembered Cal Henderson mentioning it in a video of a talk somewhere... I was thinking about discoverability (since you have to know the url that exposes the oembed service) and as I scroll down the oembed page I see they just use a link element in the head with the type specifying format+service (eg type="text/xml+oembed") with the url that will directly return the meta-info.

That helps but I wonder if it there's a microformat for oembed so the content would be directly in the page instead of dependent on a second fetch...

Re: Bootstrapping thumbnails for photo apps (Scripting News)

dave — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 23:39:10 -0000

That is interesting, it's overkill for my photos site -- I don't have a web service, and much prefer a static solution. But it still is interesting to see how they approached it. BTW, it's not just JSON, they also specify an XML interface.

Re: Bootstrapping thumbnails for photo apps (Scripting News)

simeonf — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 23:21:47 -0000

Maybe you're looking for oembed? It's a little more complicated (basically call a webservice url passing the url you're interested in and get back a snippet of json with some metainfo and media link.) Flickr and Hulu support it; I believe Cal Henderson at flickr wrote the spec...

See http://oembed.com/ for details...