Is this an appropriate meme to be sharing? Somehow I think not. It certainly doesn’t comply with the law of love that Jesus spoke about on several occasions.
Here’s one more in my series of social media posts. This one is a little longer than the other ones. I’ve seen it worded two or three ways. It’s based on the premise that people act stupidly. Now, I know that the word “stupid” is out of favor at present. You ought not call anyone stupid, which is usually meant to demean their intelligence.
The meme I see fairly regularly on Facebook, and I suspect it would also be on other social media platforms, is something like this.
I have got to stop saying “How stupid can you be?” I’m beginning to think people are taking it as a challenge.
In other words, people in general are really, really stupid. And just when you think they can’t be any stupider than they have been so far, they go and do something even more stupid.
This grates on me. Behind this meme is the thought by the one posting it that everyone he/she knows is stupider than he/she. The person has an expectation that everyone he encounters in life is below him on the intelligence scale. Or on the behavioral scale.
I look at Jesus’s command to love one another, love your neighbor, and love God. Somehow this meme doesn’t fit that command. You might say, “I’m just telling it like it is.” You might think so. You might even be way high on the behavioral and intelligence scales. But saying this meme is not loving others.
It’s your choice. Post the meme if you want to appear arrogant. I’m going to do my best to live out the law of love.
I’ve seen this several places. Somehow it grates on me.
This second post in the series about advice found on Facebook somewhat stunned me. It came in a post titled “A Prayer for Removal of the Wicked”. Here’s the text of it.
Father, we ask in the name of Jesus that all WILLFUL WORKERS OF WICKEDNESS be removed from position of power, prominence and prestige. Open the eyes of those being deceived and place people who stand for your righteous cause in the high places of government and influence.
I have to tell you, I have mixed feelings about this. At least until I think about it. Do I want our government to function efficiently, honestly, and ethically? For sure. Would I like to see every government employee be an ethical person and do only good, never wickedness? Of course. Am I so naive that I think everyone in government has good as their only attention? No, I know that in any large group of humans there are plenty of people who meet the definition of “willful workers of wickedness”.
Should we pray for as stated in that posted prayer? You would think so, but I wonder. As Christians, where is our hope? Is it in government? Or in God? If in government, where is there room for God? If in God, why would we pray a prayer so all-encompassing as to ask God to remove all those from government whose conduct does not meet with our definition of goodness? Because, before you declare some people wicked, you have to define wickedness.
Well, that’s easy, you say. Sin is the definition of wickedness. But no two people can agree on the definition of sin; hence, no consensus definition of wickedness is to be had. But surely there is a degree of wickedness so bad that we can agree on that? Let the prayer be limited to the wickedness we all can agree on, and ask God to run all of them out of government. So to pray that prayer means we are setting ourselves up as the ones who define what wickedness is.
I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t seem to be following the law of love. How could we rephrase that prayer—assuming the presence of wicked people in government at any or all levels is a true problem—so that it complies with the law of love? How about:
Father, we ask that you help our government to be a force for good, not evil. We pray that government workers and leaders at all levels work only for the good of their constituents.
That would be a prayer I could pray. As for that prayer suggested on Facebook, I think it better to leave it un-prayed.
You all have probably seen something like this on social media.
Yes, Facebook, like all social media, is full of advice. Is any of it worth listening to? Or actually modifying your behavior to emulate it? I’m thinking of doing a series of short posts—not necessarily consecutively—discussing some of them. Or, perhaps I’ll do one or two and find it a waste of time. But here’s the first.
If you treat me right, I’ll treat you right. But if you cross me, I’ll hurt you right back.
I have seen this over and over on Facebook. It’s probably on other social media platforms as well. I’ve seen it said by men and women, though more often by men. The people who say this seem to span many ages, though I think they come more often from those considered middle aged.
Is this good advice, something worth making one of you life behaviors? When I think of wise maxims people have grown to accept as useful guides to behavior, I think of the Golden Rule.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
But that’s just the opposite of the Facebook advice, which can be rephrased as
Do to others as they have done to you.
That’s just the opposite of the Golden Rule. Let your behavior be governed by others—not just by others, but by behavior that you dislike or even find reprehensible. You wind up behaving just like them.
I also see in this Facebook phrase a touch of passive aggressiveness. That may not be the right use of that psychology phrase, which I’m not sure I ever fully understood. But you are saying something aggressive that you will enact in a passive way—your behavior totally depending on how others behave toward you.
How much better to treat others, not how they have treated you, but in love. To return insult with blessing; evil with good; hate with love.
So, when you see this advice on Facebook or other social media, counter it with the Golden Rule. Don’t let your behavior be dictated by that of others.
Easter 1974 became a new day for me, a total change in life direction.
It was Easter Sunday, 1974, senior year in college. I was living “down the line,” as we called it at URI. But it was in a small bedroom at my grandparents’ house in Snug Harbor, about 10 miles away. So was I down the line or commuting from home? Not that matters, because it has almost no bearing on the story.
That Sunday morning, I took my grandmother to church, my grandfather not feeling well enough to go. It was a fairly early service and we were back home by 10:00 a.m. After a late breakfast, I went to my bedroom to make an important decision.
I had been active in the job hunt that semester and had four job offers to choose between. Three of them were in the Boston area; the fourth in Kansas City. I knew one of the Boston offers wouldn’t be my choice, so it was really a choice of three jobs. Two in Boston—within commuting distance from my dad’s home in Cranston via bus and commuter rail. One 1500 miles away. I knew this was a decision I couldn’t make on my own, so I stopped to pray about it.
At this point I need to break into my own narrative and explain my spiritual journey. I arrived at college with a basic understanding of liturgical Christianity but no personal relationship with Christ. I attended that denomination one time on campus, and when I went home from time to time. Through the witness of some Navigators on campus, and observing spiritual progress of friends, I had made a commitment to Christ the previous summer while watching a Billy Graham crusade on TV. However, while I had the knowledge I needed, I didn’t turn away from sin. In fact, I fell into the most serious of my sins after that.
But back to the main story. I came to that Easter Sunday morning unconverted. I had three jobs to decide between and felt that I had to do it that day. As I said above, I stopped to pray and ask for guidance. But I realized I had no standing with God that I could ask him for anything or expect an answer.
I stopped my deliberations and bowed my head to pray. Alone, in my bedroom. Just me praying silently and God on the other end, I assumed listening. I prayed a prayer of repentance and asked God to reinstate me—or maybe instate me for the first time. Also that he would guide me through the decision I had to make. I ended my prayer and I felt…nothing.
No bolt of lightning. No hearing God’s voice. No feeling of jubilation.
But I guess I sensed that God heard me. So I prayed again that he would guide my decision, that if he wasn’t going to speak directly to me, he would at least guide me to make the decision he wanted me to make.
And I’m sure he did. I chose the job in Kansas City, and a little over two months later, I loaded up almost all my earthly possessions into my 1966 Plymouth Valiant, with the slant-6 engine, three-speed on the column, and well-worn snow tires on the rear and drove 1,500 miles to begin my professional career. That led me to marriage, then fatherhood, then to Saudi Arabia, then to North Carolina, then to Kuwait and the wartime interruption, then to Northwest Arkansas.
But that’s actually another story, the one that starts my fledgling autobiography, Tales Of A Vagabond. Look for that in maybe 15 to 20 years.
So today is the 50th anniversary of the start of my walk with Jesus, a walk that has been imperfect, but unbroken. I’m not sure what day of what month it was in 1974. I looked it up once. It was sometime in early April, I think, but I choose to remember it on whatever day Easter falls on that year.
I don’t know how many more of these anniversaries I’ll have, but it will always be a special day in my year—the most special day.
3-stars is the best I can give this. It could have easily been 2. Yet I’m going to read it again to see if I’m being too harsh with it.
Back in January, I went to an event at our church titled: “How to Navigate the 2024 Election Year”. The evening involved dinner and a book, as well as a guest speaker. His name is Eric Costanzo, and one of the books to choose between was his, Inalienable: How Marginalized Voices Can Help Save The American Church, coauthored with Daniel Yang and Matthew Soerens. That’s the one I chose. The event was okay, not great. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I went mainly to be supportive of our pastor.
So I read the book, taking over a month to go through it. It was published in 2022, which means it was mostly written in 2020 and 2021. I found the book a little difficult to read. One was the frequent references interspersed—but the authors said in the first chapter they would do that, so it wasn’t a surprise. The other was the frequent use of buzzwords. I have a internal buzzword meter that is kind of fine-tuned. Use a buzzword once and I ignore it. Use it twice and I get a little irked. Use if four or five times in every chapter and I have to fight the urge to puke. That’s where this book is.
The first chapter takes the place of an introduction, with the title “Why the American Church Needs Saving”. Very early comes the phrase, “many evangelical Christians in the United States have silently tolerated or openly embraced nationalism, sexism, and racism, ‘compromising our values for power.” That’s pretty clear for the premise they hope to prove.
Since I am part of the evangelical church, I guess he’s talking about me. Seems that whatever I—we—have done in our Christian walk is all wrong. Yet, in the entire 221 page book, they skirt the issue of who is responsible and give no action steps other than listen to the voices of the “global south,” which is defined in the book as those parts of the world lying south of white Europe and white America.
In an attempt to not offend people, they don’t give names of who is to blame. It’s clear that they are opposed to the evangelical church’s embrace of right-wing Republican politics. They condemn that embrace, as I do. But they don’t mention names, and they really don’t get into specific issues. It would have been nice for them to have picked a date, place, and time when the American church started to go bad to the point that it needs saving, because, assuming they are correct, that would give us a point in time to go back to, figure out what we did wrong, and make corrections going forward.
As to racism, the point is well taken. Sunday mornings tend to be the most segregated moment of the week, and that’s sad. Why is that so? The book didn’t really say, but they strongly imply it’s white racism that is the root cause. The authors seem to imply that forced diversity is the answer. I’ve always been a proponent of natural diversity, where, as an individual of reasonable intelligence and loving care, I come to recognize my prejudices, set them aside with God’s help, and embrace all people as equals before God.
To me it seems wrong-headed to say, Hey, our congregation is too white. We need to find some blacks, Asians, and Hispanics to reach out to. But I may not know any. Why? Simply because in my day-to-day roamings—to the grocery store, the doctor, on my walks, or wherever the chores of a given day take me—I may not meet people who are different than me, or the circumstances may not be right for discussing church with someone.
The other, main problem I see in the book is the continuation of the war on the individual. My review is much too long already, but throughout the book the authors work in that the existence of marginalized groups is due to individualism. I reject that, but explaining why will take more than one post.
Two other things about this book that irk me. While it includes many references to and quotes from their primary sources, the notes are endnote rather than footnotes. I hate endnotes. If it’s important enough to make a reference to it, it’s important enough to have it right on the page where I can easily see it without flipping a hundred pages away. And second, it does not include a list of suggested reading. The quote from probably two hundred sources (see the endnotes to find the names), but don’t suggest the 5, 10, or 20 that will help the reader the most in continued study of what’s wrong with American evangelicalism.
As it is, I give the book 3-stars. I almost gave it 2, but I realize the authors are trying to do a good thing here and address a problem they see. I’m not discarding the book. I hope to read it again, in the not too distant future, in hopes of learning something I missed, and to better understand the authors’ opinions.
It seems a long time since I published anything. My last book was The Key To Time Travel, published in June last year. Since then, I worked on three different books, two in my Bible study series and one in my Documenting America series. I published the latter one on Kindle Vella, and recently began the work to publish it as a stand-alone book. Hopefully that will be ready for publishing before the end of February. After that, I have a completed short story to release soon, maybe in March.
But, right now, I completed the publishing tasks for To Jerusalem, which is Volume 1 of 8 in my Bible study series, A Walk Through Holy Week. It covers the period from the banquet in Bethany, six days before the Passover, to some of the teaching did on Tuesday of Holy Week.
My granddaughter, Elise, did the artwork for the cover series. Her work is acknowledged in the book. This was version one of the art.
The book is organized into ten chapters, with the idea that this could a series of ten small group lessons leading up to and perhaps going a few week after Easter. Our own adult Sunday School class has been going through this series for several years, one volume at a time (though is six parts rather than the eight volumes of the final series). The class seems to have enjoyed it.
The book is available, both as an ebook and paperback, at Amazon.
The book was republished with a new cover in 2008, and may have been updated from the 1994 edition I read.
Due to the current remediation work taking place at our house, we had to take all the books off the built-in bookshelves in the living room. The workmen then took the bookshelves out to get at the damaged areas. As I pulled books off the shelves, I saw some I didn’t realize were there. Most of the books went into boxes temporarily. They currently decorate our dining room floor, with no end in sight.
One such book was Guard Your Heart by Dr. Gary Rosberg. Published in 1994, this book came out in the midst of several men’s ministries, including Promise Keepers. Rosberg wasn’t part of that, but he was the founder of a different movement called CrossTrainers.
The book is excellent. You would think a book now 30 years old might be a little dated. Perhaps it is, but I found it to be excellent. Dr. Rosberg, a practicing counsellor (well, he was at the time; could be retired for all I know, though his website doesn’t indicate that) points out many things that men struggle with: juggling work and home; workplace difficulties; allocating time; maintaining spiritual vitality.
The book looks at what Rosberg calls “frontal attacks” and “sneak attacks that men he surveyed say are what they experience in their Christian life. Each of several of these attacks are covered in separate chapters. I found the advice given useful to me, even though the book was written for younger men who are still in their careers.
I rate the book 4-stars. It loses one star simply due to its age—there are probably slightly better books written in the last five years dealing with the same issues. But don’t get me wrong: this is very good and well worth the read. Alas, however, it is not a keeper. To the donation pile it will go.
The Davidic Chronicles is just one of Greg Baker’s series.
Most of the authors I interview on the blog are like me: struggling self-published authors hoping to somehow find an audience, trying to sell a book here and there. But today we’ll hear about a successful author, Greg S. Baker. A prolific author, much of his work is self-published. But he seems to have found the formula for getting sales.
So I thought I’d like to hear from him on the blog, and that you might too.
Q: In a couple of paragraphs, tell us about your journey to being an author.
Greg: I’ve always wanted to write, ever since I was a teenager. I even made an attempt at writing a fantasy novel with a friend in high school. We mailed the manuscript off to a big-name publisher and received a very nice rejection letter some months later. Discouraged, I set it aside to follow a different plan that God had put on my heart: pastoring. I pastored a church in Colorado for 13 years, but the passion for writing never went away.
While pastoring, I began writing again, and even landed several contracts with smaller publishers. This eventually led to a passion for writing that would honor God more so than my first attempt as a teenager did, so I stepped down from pastoring and began a ministry in Christian literature. While writing my own books, I also began a ministry specifically to help other Christian authors: Affordable Christian Editing Services. And since then, I’ve published over 20 books myself and our small service has helped thousands of authors with editing and publishing services.
Q: The Davidic Chronicles seem to be the mainstay of your published books. Tell us a little about the series, and specifically about Book 1, Anointed. It has over 450 ratings and a high ranking on Amazon. Is this your highest selling book?
Author Greg S. Baker is a good author to know about if you like Bible-era fiction,
Greg: The Davidic Chronicles is by far my most popular series. It is a set of biblical fiction novels revolving around the life of King David from when he is anointed by Samuel to when he was again anointed king in Hebron. To honor the Scriptures, I did not change any of the facts we are given from his life. But I fictionally filled in what might have happened between those facts. The goal was to create an interesting and entertaining read that would create wonder and excitement for the Scriptures. I wanted people to think, “Is that really in the Bible?” And then I wanted them to go and look for themselves. I tied together many of the facts that people overlook, such as the fact that Joab was David’s nephew or that Abner was Saul’s cousin. I wanted people to see that there is more to the Bible than they think with a casual read.
I also incorporated a tremendous amount of research into the time period, including the culture of the Philistines (Israel’s main rival during David’s life). I flushed out the characters with the personalities that the Scriptures hint about where possible and insert aspects of the wider culture that are often overlooked.
I really did enjoy writing them.
Q: Is the Davidic Chronicles series complete, or are more volumes coming? Perhaps you’ve moved on to a new biblical fiction series.
Greg: I have no plans on expanding the Davidic Chronicles at this time. I wrote another series of four novels on the lives of Daniel, Jeremiah, and Nebuchadnezzar, which I call the Rise of Daniel series. I also intend to write an antediluvian series of 9 novels that focus on three men: Seth, Enoch, and Noah.
Q: One of my problems is a writer is a malady I’ve named “Genre Focus Disorder”. I can’t concentrate on any one thing. I see you have books in both fiction and non-fiction, but fiction—specifically biblical fiction—seems to dominate. Why does this appeal to you as a writer?
Greg: I love biblical fiction for many reasons. First, I love to write, and they say that you should write about what you love and what you know. Well, I know the Bible—at least a little bit—and I love the Scriptures. So writing biblical fiction helps me to get excited about the research, the process of writing itself, and helping others make connections in Scriptures they would not normally make.
Jesus taught in parables. These stories resonated with people and taught them truths they might otherwise dismiss or not apply. I would like to do something similar.
Q: Apart from biblical fiction, what do you write most?
Greg: That depends. I have a set of Christian fantasy/adventure novels that I love writing, but I also enjoy writing non-fiction books. Last year, I published a book that is meant to help first generation Christians with the very specific and particular battles they fight. I write what I’m passionate about, and for many authors, such passion is derived from experience, enjoyment, need, and purpose.
I’m looking forward reading some of Greg’s books. You can find his books most easily through his website, https://gregsbaker.com/.
Someone will think me sacrilegious, but I couldn’t get into this one.
As I’ve said many times on this blog, a time of downsizing from our living circumstances is coming. As part of that, we need to get rid of about half of our 3,000 to 4,000 books. That number is after we have sold or donated many already. I figure well over 1,000 books are already gone. So in choosing books to read, I scan our shelves and try to choose something that looks interesting but is something I most likely won’t want to keep.
A number of our books are what could be called Christian classics. So a couple of months ago, when it was time to start a new book, my eyes fell on The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Written over 1,600 years ago, this meets the definition of Christian classic. I thought, it’s probably something every Christian should read. I started it in early 2023, read it on four days, put it aside, and picked it up again in late November last year.
Why did I lay it down after four days? Because I found it hard to read and understand. The book I read it in was translated by John K. Ryan. The original, of course, is in Latin. I suppose the readability will depend on the translation. Or is it possible that all translations can’t do more with the English construction than the original language gives you? I suppose I would need to read a different translation to find out.
Why didn’t I like it? Perhaps it’s due to passages like this one.
In truth, I should have wished, had I then been Moses—for we all come from the same clay, and what is man, unless because you are mindful of him?—I should have wished, if I had been what he was, and had been enjoined by you to write the book of Genesis, that such power of eloquence had been given to me, and such ways to fashion words that not even they that cannot yet understand how God creates things would reject my words as beyond my powers; while they who can already understand, no matter what true interpretation they have arrived at in their thought, would not find it passed over in your servant’s few words; and if some other man by the light of truth had perceived a further meaning, it should not fail to be understood from those same words.
And that’s just one sentence! The whole book is like that.
I found myself reading and not comprehending at all. The Confessions consists of thirteen books, each book broken down into multiple short chapters. I started each book with renewed determination to understand what I was reading. Alas, by the second chapter I would once again be reading the words but not comprehending.
When I was about halfway through I thought about giving up. But I pressed on. Sometimes the paragraphs put me to sleep; sometimes they were just incomprehensible. The main reading took me from Nov 29 to Jan 18. Rarely could I read as many ten pages at a sitting.
Well, this is quite a downer of a review. As you can tell, this book is not a keeper. But no worries: I have two more copies of it. Maybe, in a few years, I’ll pull out one of the others and see if another translation will be easier. But this mass-market paperback is going in the donation pile.
As I mentioned in previous posts, not long ago I was hot and heavy into writing a new volume in my Documenting America series. It was an interesting project. I did the research on it back in 2020-21, but laid the project aside while other things occupied my attention. The writing was easier than I expected, and I finished writing it on September 22, eight days earlier than my goal. I’m now editing the chapters (2/3 done) and posting chapters to Kindle Vella twice a week. That process will play out slowly for the rest of 2023.
The next project I had planned to write was my Bible study, A Walk Through Holy Week. The plan for this, which I settled on late last year, was for it to be eight volumes, each between 30,000 and 50,000 words. As of right now, it’s half done.
Alas, I started the project two years ago with Volume 4, and moved on through Volumes 5, 6, and 7. In February-April next year, I’ll be co-teaching Volume 8 in adult Sunday school class and will write that volume simultaneously with the teaching. Thus, I have Volumes 1, 2, and 3 to go back and fill in.
I was tempted to go ahead and publish what I have done, meaning Volume 4, then follow rapidly with the other parts. But when I thought more about it, I decided no, it was better to publish the whole series beginning with Volume 1, and then consecutively thereafter. So as I saw my history book project drawing to a close, I knew I had to schedule AWTHW next.
This switching from political-history writing to Bible study had me concerned. What kind of progress would I make? Could I change course so dramatically and be effective?
I began working on the new project last week, while we were at our daughter and son-in-law’s house in Texas. All I completed was the Introduction. Then on Wednesday this week, back home in Bella Vista, I got to work in earnest in my regular writing routine—in the Dungeon, starting early in the morning.
Wednesday, I wrote the first section of Chapter 1 and a paragraph of section two. Each chapter will have seven sections, corresponding to seven daily readings in a week. Thursday, I wrote the next three sections of Ch 1. Thus, four sections are written. At that pace, or something close to it, I’ll finish Ch 1 this week and be ready for Ch 2 next week, and hopefully some of Ch 3.
That is a writing rate that will see my goal of November completion met.
Another thing I’m doing with it, as a trial. Is reading the prior one or two days of writing at the start of my writing section. In other words, edit as I go. I’m doing that for two reasons. First, it ought to make the final editing/proofreading less onerous at the end of the project. Second, it should help me better remember where I left off the prior writing session, which in turn ought to help propel me on the new day of writing.
So that’s the plan. I already have a mockup of the series cover, though early in the process.
So today I’m kind of excited. I’m working on a book I’m enjoying writing, and should have something to publish in January—with a plan of what to write next going out probably until next June. I like planning ahead.
