Libby is the best!

No, not Scooter Libby. LIBBY Hallock, our german shepherd mix! She's got the biggest ears of any good lookin' dog out there. Libby is crazy... she eats the soap while we're giving her a bath, and she drinks the water too! We got her about 3 months ago from a shelter, and haven't had any problems with her (except when we left her in the house by herself once). She is very well mannered, most of the time. She loves her toy chicken. For Christmas, she's getting a replacement chicken. :-)

This post is short and sweet, just like her!

Co-authored by Jeremy & Beth.

The sad plight of Iraqi Christians -- Post Saddam

Over the last few years I have followed some of the news about the persecution of Christians in Iraq. I'm going to keep this post short, but basically, Christians had protection under Saddam Hussein. He may have been an evil person but he was a secular Muslim and did not persecute Christians. After Saddam was removed from power, the country has been taken over by militant muslims. Not only the "insurgents", but also the political leaders. Sharia law rules in Iraq. Christians are murdered for simply being Christians. Many Christian churches in Iraq have been bombed, including the one in this photo. Most of the million plus Iraqi Christians have either had to flee Iraq or have been killed.

Here is a recent 60 minutes segment that gives a pretty good glimpse of what is going on in Iraq.

I have a difficult time with the widespread support of the Iraq War by so many American Christians. A prominent Christian professor actually told me recently that what is happening to Christians is not at all relevant to whether or not we should consider the war right or wrong. For the record, I disagree. I've talked about it before, but one issue we must consider is whether or not this war conforms to the Just War Theory. I will be posting more about that later as I would like to get deep into that discussion. In the mean time, we should be in constant prayer for our fellow believers in Iraq, and for that matter, in all countries where they are persecuted for their faith. We should also be eternally grateful to God for the freedoms we have to live out and share our faith in this country.

Christmas Lights!

Well, it took a few days to get all the Christmas lights up, but they are finally up! If I'm not mistaken, we've bought Christmas lights every year that we've been married (3 years) but have never put up Christmas lights. We have either been at my parents, or Beth's dad's house or in Brazil. We are going to be in Houston again this year, but we decided we were going to put up lights anyway. We bought our tree the day after Christmas when we were in Houston several years ago but hadn't set it up either. So, after several evenings of fun we now have our tree up and very nicely decorated by Beth, and we have our lights up. My lovely wife says it looks like the lights were professionally installed, and I will gladly accept that compliment! You can't see it all that well in the picture of the house lights, but the Christmas tree lights are visible through the office window, almost directly below the cross. ...and I wasn't going to advertise my own embarrassment, but I think I will anyway. As I was in the attic, about to plug in the power cord for the cross, I don't really remember exactly what I did, but I found myself looking down at my washing machine through a freshly punched out hole in my ceiling. I thought about taking a picture and putting it up here, but maybe I'll just post before and after pictures once I've got it fixed. So anyway, later this week I'm going to invite a buddy or two over for a "fix my ceiling" party! :-)

What should a Christian look like?

I love these PC vs. Mac parody videos. Some would probably consider them a little offensive, but I like the fact that they are thought provoking videos. Enjoy.

I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 01

I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 02

I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 03

I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 04

I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 05

I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 06

Should Christians vote for Ron Paul? - Part 2

This is part two of a two part series of blogs to discuss Ron Paul’s positions on the top 5 issues that are relevant to the Christian world view when determining the presidential candidate they will support. If you have not read Part 1, please clink here to read the post.

In the first post we discussed 1. abortion, 2. salvation and 3. war. Now we will continue the discussion with issues 4 and 5.

4. Home Schooling is an important issue to many Christians. I was home schooled for several years growing up (many years ago!) so, while home schooling laws do not affect me directly any more, I still have a soft spot for this issue. Here are some quotes from Ron Paul’s website: “Returning control of education to parents is the centerpiece of my education agenda. As President I will advance tax credits through the Family Education Freedom Act, which reduces taxes to make it easier for parents to home school by allowing them to devote more of their own funds to their children's education.
I will veto any legislation that creates national standards or national testing for home school parents or students. I also believe that, as long as No Child Left Behind remains law, it must include the protections for home schoolers included in sec. 9506 (enshrining home schoolers’ rights) and 9527 (guaranteeing no national curriculum).
Federal monies must never be used to undermine the rights of homeschooling parents. I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to encourage a culture of educational freedom throughout the nation.” It seems like most of what I am writing ends up being quotes, but I have to admit that it’s easy to do because Dr. Paul explains his positions in such an eloquent and direct way.

5. I was planning to discuss issues of personal privacy and freedom here, however, after some thought I have decided that those issues aren’t really “Christian world view” issues. However, I will say that when you look back throughout history it seems that the first thing to go when a society becomes more socialist is religious freedom. Keep this thought in mind as you research the issues and compare the views of the other candidates, be it Republican or Democrat. I would have to say that a more relevant issue for Christians would be the morality and family life of the candidates. I don’t think you will find a man who has more integrity or a more stable family life than Dr. Paul. He has been married to the same woman for 50 years, has 5 children and 17 grandchildren. I am not saying his family life is better than ALL the other candidates, but I don’t think you can beat it. Here are some notes on the integrity of the man:
He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.

I believe the issues discussed here are most relevant to the Christian world view. I certainly believe there are other issues that are as important as these; however, my intent with these posts is to bring to light the issues that are considered most relevant to Christians.

We are giving up our freedoms and privacy with, among other things, the National ID, the Patriot Act. Benjamin Franklin once stated that “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

I could go on and on about the merits of Ron Paul’s domestic and foreign policy, his belief in a strict adherence to the constitution, his incredibly consistent voting record and his faithful family life. You may see statistics about his voting record that may not align with the “conservative” vote, but you must remember that he does not vote for any legislation that is not expressly authorized by the constitution.

Don’t judge Ron Paul by what you hear. Check out his website, http://ronpaul2008.com/, and the Ron Paul Library website, http://ronpaullibrary.com/, which contains documents on his position on pretty much any issue you can think of. Watch any speech (http://www.youtube.com/RonPaul2008DotCom) and you will come to see the sincerity and passion of Dr. Paul. Do some research and find out if he may be worth your vote. He is certainly worth mine.