only a remnant of them will be saved

baptism, circumcision. the love of God. the love of God. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. walk in the newness of life, united with him in a resurrection like his. little to be said.

the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you

every heresy: a denial of the cross. not understanding sacrifice. Christology is the gospel, it is not academic, it's all the cross and resurrection. what else is there?

Posted Elsewhere.

In response to somebody who insisted that conservative Anglicans were more like the Orthodox than Catholics were, I pointed out that most of the ones I knew were quite Evangelical [especially true on the world scene, see Africa]. Perhaps even "39 Articles" Evangelical. Then he backtracked, saying, no, he meant traditional ones, and gave one example where he had a theological discussion with his girlfriend's priest and could only find one minor theological disagreement with him. Whereas he, when he was ever-so-recently a Catholic preparing for seminary, obviously had to have enough theological differences with Catholicism that he had to leave. My response to those "playing up" the differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism:

I agree with you that Catholicism is not Orthodoxy and has quite a ways to go until it approaches. But a counterpoint has to be made to those who insist traditional Anglicanism is closer than Catholicism. It's the sort of thing only a recent Catholic convert who doesn't know much about Anglicanism could say. I mean, certainly, there are some Anglicans who are closer than some Catholics and some Catholics who are closer than some Anglicans. No denying that. There may even be some decent-sized pockets which are like that. ... But, seriously, the only things most types of conservative or traditional Anglicanism has in common with Orthodoxy to the exclusion of Catholicism is antinomian tendencies in the name of not being legalists like the Catholics, a secret yearning for schism, an occasional love of vagueness rather than definition in the name of "mystery", and not being popish.

Though I bet most of those differences don't have much truck in Nigeria, except maybe the last. But, in America, with western converts...

Of course, I wasn't being completely honest. I believe Orthodoxy isn't Catholicism and there are several things that would have to change, but it doesn't have "a ways to go". I believe I've commented in the past on this matter, so I'll leave it at that.

a few notes

A few unordered, but numbered, notes on divers topics.

1. Generally, hats must not be worn indoors or when talking to ladies. It is worth taking the time to learn the exceptions [they fit on a business card and can be provided upon request], but it's better to be safe than sorry.
2. I still generally preface "Protestantism" in my thoughts by "the satanic delusion of...".
3. Once again: "web-log", not "blog".
4. You're a woman, I'm a machine.
5. I am unrepentant about ever using "gender" as a verb.

Dilemma.

I solved the work vs. non-work dilemma for today: it seems I accidentally broke xorg.conf, so I'm dinking around with that rather than working. I'm going to look into running DSL within Windows to hack at it. Should be fun.

But, another dilemma: so I got invited by a Charismatic to watch a movie [Narnia] and participate in a discussion at her church tomorrow evening. It is, undoubtedly, some outreach thing. But, I might as well go because I have nothing else to do and love Lewis [not as much of a fan of the movie itself]. Dilemma: go or not? As I'm a guest, there would have to be no trolling. And I might still have to putz around with xorg.conf, after all. Decisions, decisions... I think the fact that it'll be dry might make it a no-go: not because I need alcohol to be sociable, but because it's a good way to keep me amused enough that I don't troll/pull/etc and there's grave danger of such a thing happening at a place like this.

EDIT: I didn't get it all fixed and working out like it should, so I just put it back to the perfectly-adequate default configuration. Now: I might get some work done.

I am terrified by everything, from the smallest gnat to the mystery of the incarnation.

Kierkegaard.