Food & drink

Don't know how or why I get e-mails like this, but this one arrived today and I thought readers might get a kick out of it. Now we know what Doug's been doing on vacation. What I can't figure out, though, is why no mention of Nancy? My Dad and Mud always shared the cooking, but when I've been at the Wilsons for a meal... 

There are many things we don't normally talk about here on Baylyblog, some of which we do talk about in person, in sermons and elders meetings, and at home. One of these is the diets and food fads regularly coursing through our congregations. Everything God created is good, and to be recevied from Him with thanksgiving. But try telling that to the daughters of Carrie Nation in our congregations whose purpose in life is to keep track of unclean foods.

Back in the late nineties it was Weigh Down. Evangelical women across the country jumped on board and began confessing their gluttony. They lost some weight for a few days, but the fad died when the heresy of Weigh Down's prophetess, Gwen Shamblin, was exposed. "People don't care about the Trinity," Shamblin said, and over the next couple months most of the pounds went back on.

Since then there have been a succession of foodie-spiritualie fads. Recently I've heard the quest for sanctification in some PCA churches has veered into the neo-vegan program, Forks over Knives ("ORDER NOW!"). Their name is an allusion to the spiritual superiority of food eaten with forks to food cut with knives. Think spinach and parsley over chicken and beef. Of course the souls caught up in these Quests for Higher Life deny their disciplines have anything to do with moral or spiritual purity, but the fervor of their evangelization of others and their testimonies of body purification belie their words. What awful church feasts their fellow congregants must endure!

The mother-of-all food fads today is, of course, gluten intolerance...

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jeremiah 5:30, 31)

You may want to dismiss it as looniness, but this assault against God's Order of Creation is rebellion against the God Who made us. It's not naive or misguided. It's evil. Attacks on God's Creation Order are all around us and we must recognize that each of them is a part of Satan's conspiracy to grease the descent to Hell.

Feminism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God made Adam first, then Eve. Thus those who conspire to place woman in positions where she teaches and exercises authority over man are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Homosexism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God made Eve--not Steve--for Adam. Thus those who conspire to legalize sodomy and promote sodomitic unions are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Veganism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God created adam alone--both Adam and Eve--in His Own Image. He did not create animals in His Image. Thus those whose morality has descended to Veganism and the claim of personhood and legal standing for animals are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Satan has conspired to paint each of these revolutions a pretty face. Feminism is a long-overdue correction of patriarchal oppression. Homsexism is a long overdue correction of homophobic oppression. Veganism is a long-overdue correction of speciest oppression.

Satan has also conspired to silence the Church of Jesus Christ... 

You the best, Jonathan. Great clip. (TB)

 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. - John 1:16

The garden's winding down. Just a few butternut squash still on the vine. String beans waning and cantelope and watermelon and summer squash gone. Cucumbers still ticking, but only slowly. Lots of every kind of pepper still coming--especially jalapeno and habanero (see pic on next page) and poblano (there behind the basil). The basil bushes are huge and we've finally let them flower. Bumblebees are all over them today. Our tomato plants go on bearing fruit, denuded down the bottom third of the stalk but sputtering out enough for joy at every lunch and dinner...

We just celebrated grandson Josiah's sixth birthday and I wanted to post a pic of the birthday cake his mother, Heather, made for him. You'll remember we had a thirty-five car derailment around the corner, recently (the road is still closed). The cars were aluminum coal gondolas and when they went off the tracks they created an indistinguishable mass of aluminum and coal.

The children were taken over to the nearest crossing where they loved watching the cherry pickers and bulldozers clean up the aluminum skeletons and pick up the coal. Josiah's cake is a perfect reproduction of that wonderful scene. (TB)

Here's an excellent article by Brian Carpenter that's filled with wisdom for all of us, but particularly those of us learning how to raise our children in the Lord. Read it. Then ask your wife and children to read it and discuss it around your dinner table.

(TB: w/thanks to David W.)

(Tim) If you're traveling through Utica, New York, may I suggest you stay at Bob and Rita Sley's Rosemont Inn. And while you're at it, buy some of their homemade granola. It's delicious!

(Tim) Lest anyone who's been watching the debate with our R2-K brothers think they're making much ado about nothing, check out this NYTimes piece about the various ways churches in the Pacific Northwest are replacing Father God with Mother Earth. Millwood (Washington) Community Presbyterian Church, for instance, holds a very successful Greenies market in their church parking lot where deeply spiritual beef and sanctified vegetables are sold.

When the city fathers came to the church and told them to stop hosting the market or start paying taxes, the church started paying taxes. Pastor Craig

Goodwin explained it this way:

“It’s like we’ve got more going on in our parking lot than we do within

the walls of the church...."

I'm betting it's not "like" that at all...