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It's 6:35 p.m. CST and I just wrote the check for my federal return. My return is on the way to the post office...it's the earliest I've ever filed by about 4 hours.

I just turned 34 yesterday (4/12) and coincidentally I just created an Amazon Wish List, which is permanently linked below in the Red Column. So if you're feeling generous or wealthy or both, then spend away ;-)

While posting the last entry (McWhorter), I noticed that there's the new Spring 2002 issue of the City Journal has just been posted to the web!!

When was the last time you used the word pusillanimously in a sentence? If you'd like to read it in a sentence, then surf on over to John McWhorter's article on reparations in the City Journal. In case you're not familiar with McWhorter, he's an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language and Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America. McWhorter is extremely bright and belongs to the ever increasing, yet still unpopular, group of politically conservative black leaders who refuse to sign on to the agenda of victimhood and liberal social and economic policy so often touted by the likes of Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson. Here's how McWhorter closes his article:


What ails the black community today is the very illusion that holds the reparations gang in thrall—that serious black achievement is impossible except under ideal conditions, that white neglect must be at the root of any black-white disparity, and that only the actions of whites can significantly improve the conditions of blacks.


You can also hear McWhorter debate the merits of reparations on NPR's Talk of the Nation with Richard Newman (pro-reparations) who is the Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard.

On the Boilermaker front today...Purdue is ranked 30th in the nation in another pre-season poll, and Gene Keady lands a recruit for the 2003 season.

Tertullian (c.160-215) writes the following regarding the extent to which Christians had engaged the surrounding culture like so much yeast leavening a loaf:

We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you—cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum—we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods.

Rather than retreating from the world in fear of being contaminated, these early Christians were in and among the world seasoning the culture by proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

The kingdom is where the body of Christ is found, whether we speak of His body incarnate, sacramental, or ecclesiastical.

From Peter Leithart's The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church .

This may be old news to some of you, but there's an accented Greek New Testament available on the web. It even has a some basic search features...and it's all free! I'd be interested in finding a similar site for the Hebrew OT. If any of you know of such a site please let me know.

In a pre-pre-pre-preseason college football poll, Purdue is picked number 20 in the nation. I think they'll be competitive, but that's really optimistic.

By the way, I was finally able to get the picture of Chalmers to work on my post below. Scroll down to March 18th to see it.

I've been a very baaad blogger -- 16 days without a post -- but I'm back and I hope to blog a little more frequently.

One of the books that I'm reading right now (ignore for now that list of books in the sidebar...it's several months old) is the new Teddy Roosevelt biography from Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex. Somehow I stumbled onto a Presidential Voice Library on the web and found a short section of a Roosevelt "trustbusting" speech there available in RealAudio & MP3 formats. I knew Teddy's voice was not particularly deep, but it's so much different than I imagined it. Based on both his physical appearance and his rough outdoorsman lifestyle, I expected a rugged, gravelly voice, instead I found his voice to be refined and his pronunciation delicate -- especially his T's and P's which are not forcefully expelled, and could almost pass for D's and B's respectively.

Stewart Mandel in his column at CNNSI lauds IU coach Mike Davis for the tremendous job he's done at Indiana, most recently demonstrated by IU's surprising upset of the Duke Blue Devils. As a Purdue fan, I've realized that much of my dislike of intrastate rival Indiana was concentrated on Bobby Knight, it isn't as fun to hate Indiana now that Knight's gone. In fact, I'm actually happy that Mike Davis is in the elite eight while Bobby Knight got knocked off in the first round (AGAIN!) by unheralded Southern Illinois University, coached by ex-Purdue assistant, Bruce Weber. Anyway, Mandel is tired of hearing how Davis is just riding on the success of the Indiana program that Knight built, and thereby dismissing Davis' ability as a coach. Even Duke's Coach Krzyzewski kind of dissed Davis in the pregame press conference by piling up praise for Knight. In the face of all that Mandel says it better than I could have to all the "Knight whiners":

Get yourself to Wal-Mart, buy a black sweater, put your home on the market and move to frickin' Lubbock, Texas. Because it's been 15 years since Bob Knight accomplished anything on IU's behalf even remotely approaching the magnitude of what Davis did Thursday night.

I just love a well-turned phrase...especially at the expense of Bobby Knight.

Yesterday, March 17th is known to most people as St. Patrick's Day. And indeed, St. Patrick deserves to be recognized, but from now on, I'll be celebrating not only St. Patrick's Day on March 17th, but also Chalmers Day. Thomas Chalmers was born on the coast of Scotland (Anstruther) on March 17, 1780. He was a brilliant young student who entered St. Andrews University at about the age of 11. His first love was mathematics, but likely to please his parents, he began to study theology and train for the ministry. After graduating from St. Andrews, he served the rural parish of Kilmany, while simultaneously serving as an assistant instructor in Mathematics at St. Andrews. By his own admission, he was more dedicated to mathematics than to ministry, but after watching two of his thirteen siblings die, and suffering from a serious illness himself, the Chief Shepherd got hold of this undershepherd's heart, and he began to tend the Lord's sheep wholeheartedly.

After 12 years ministering in Kilmany, he took a call to the Tron Church in Glasgow, a prestigious pulpit in Scotland. There he began to experiment, against conventional wisdom, with reviving the parish model, which he had done so effectively in rural Kilmany. "Maybe in the rural areas ," his critics said, "but not in Glasgow." Not only was Chalmers successful in reviving the parish at the Tron Church, but he was inspired to plant another church in the poorest and most corrupt section of Glasgow. The St. John's experiment was born in 1819, and quickly became an incredible success, ministering to 10,000 of the city's poorest inhabitants. Chalmers remained at St. John's until 1823 when he left to take the chair of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews, followed by a position as Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh (1828-1843). In both places he trained aspiring pastors to minister the gospel and encouraged them to plant parish churches among the poor. In 1843 he led the conservatives out of the Church of Scotland, and was elected moderator of the newly formed Free Church of Scotland. He was immediately appointed Principal and Professor at New College, Edinburgh.

So what is the parish model that set Chalmers' ministry apart, and so transformed the worst neighborhood in Glasgow? Chalmers' parish model sought to battle the worst effects of the industrial revolution - dehumanization, horrible poverty, and the rapid increase of population in the city (mostly very poor families). Scotland's answer was the "poor laws." Chalmers vehemently opposed them, convinced that the parish church could better minister to and provide for the needy within their bounds, and could do so on a "human scale" combating the tendency toward "gargantuanism" which was so anonymous and untailored to individual situations. Chalmers believed that the paish serving its own was not only good for the poor, but was good for those of the higher classes too. He believed in class networking, which allowed relationships to be built between and among the classes within the parish, thus setting a natural context for ministry to those in need. In a charge to a young crop of deacons he said:


By putting ourselves under the roof of a poor neighbor, we in a manner put ourselves under his protection, we render him our superior...The true object is not to subsidize but to elevate...What now looks so formidable in the distance will on the actual encounter, dwindle into a very moderate and manageable affair. Both the facility and success of it will very much astonish yourselves.


This brief account of Chalmers ministry is woefully inadequate, but gives you something of an idea why he's one of my heroes. You can read more about Chalmers here, and I encourage you to do so.

Happy belated 222nd Birthday Dr. Chalmers!!