Category: Technology

Southern Baptists Show Us the Door

The Baptist State Convention is this week and it looks like the Southern Baptists have moved to put up more walls along with border with us Cooperative Baptists.

As a member of the CBF, I don’t have a problem with not finding approval from my more conservative Baptist kinfolk, but it is a shame that we can’t find common ground over the cacophony of politics.

I’m sure Jesus is proud.

NC So. Baptists cut ties with Coop. Baptist Fellowship | CITIZEN-TIMES.com | Asheville Citizen-Times: “The Greensboro News & Record reports that delegates to the 2008 Baptist State Convention in Greensboro have voted to remove the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship from a list of giving options for mission work.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was established as an alternative to the conservative Southern Baptist Convention. The group does not support the belief that the Bible is entirely without error, and the cooperative is willing to partner with churches that put gays into leadership roles.

Matt Williamson, pastor of Oak Forest Baptist Church in Fletcher, offered the proposal and said liberal theology will lead to liberal morality.

Remind me to not go to Oak Forest since I’ll infect them with my “liberal morality.”

Early Gospel of John Fragment Could Be Yours!

… for the low low price of 200,000-300,000 GBP.

Early third century, folks. That’s early. And beyond important for the history of Christianity and understanding how the fourth gospel got to be in its “final” state and what that process might have included (and excluded).

If only I were rich, this would be a part of the Wofford collection…

Written almost certainly in Alexandria, and used in the important early Christian community at Oxyrhynchus, in the desert west of the Nile about 120 miles from Cairo, partly covered now by the modern village of Behnesa. Ancient Oxyrhynchus was principally discovered Bernard Grenfell (1869-1926) and Arthur Hunt (1871-1934), both of Queen’s College, Oxford, who devoted their lives to excavating it. The site furnished many of the finest and most precious records of early Christianity ever found, including the sensational ‘Sayings of Jesus’ (later known as the ‘Gospel of Thomas’), as well as notable classical texts, including Pindar and Menander. The present fragment was recovered by Grenfell and Hunt on 28 September 1922, and it was classified as P. Oxy. 1780. Most of the Oxyrhynchus finds are now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the British Museum. Some specimen pieces, however, were transferred by Oxford University to appropriate theological seminaries and colleges elsewhere, including the present piece which had been given by 1924 to the Baptist college, Crozer Theological Seminary, founded near Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1865. It was later the alma mater of Martin Luther King. In 1980 Crozer merged with the ecumenical Colgate Theological Seminary in Rochester, New York. The present manuscript was Inv. 8864 in the Ambrose Swasey Library in the combined Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, until their sale in our New York rooms, 20 June 2003, lot 97, $400,000, bought then by the present owner for what is still by far the highest price ever paid at public sale for any early Christian manuscript. Since 2004 it has toured American museums in the exhibitions Dead Sea Scrolls to the Forbidden Book and Ink and Blood, where it has been seen by hundred of thousands of people. The bibliography below takes no account of the manuscript’s truly enormous presence now on Christian websites, DVDs and published videos.

GOSPEL OF JOHN, IN GREEK, LARGE FRAGMENT FROM A MANUSCRIPT CODEX ON PAPYRUS

Roman History and Google Earth

Amazing times we live in, folks.

And simply amazing for those of us called to teach…

Google LatLong: Roman history comes to life in Google Earth: “Were you someone who struggled to stay awake in ancient history class? If so, perhaps this was due to those uninspiring ‘artist renditions’ in your textbook. Reading countless pages that described how a monument, building or city may have appeared at the time can be pretty difficult to imagine.

Well, today we introduced a new approach to learning about ancient history: the ability to go back in time and explore Rome as it existed in 320 AD — in 3D!”

Amazing.

I love Google and the interwebs.

Tonight’s the Night


I listened to Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night again last night. Amazing.

A comment on Amazon likens the album to Robert Johnson’s rawness and the Wikipedia article hints at the personal nature of the artistry behind the songs:

Tonight’s the Night (album) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “Included with the vinyl release of Tonight’s the Night was a seemingly strange insert that added to Neil Young’s claim that Tonight’s the Night was the closest he ever came to art. Emphasising the personal nature of the album, the self-penned liner notes contained an apology: ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know these people. This means nothing to you.’ The original inserts/liner notes included in the vinyl release were quite cryptic in their conveyance.

On the front of the insert is a letter to the mysterious ‘Waterface’ character, no explanation is given to their identity, although in Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography by Jimmy McDonough, Young says that ‘Waterface is the person writing the letter. When I read the letter, I’m Waterface. It’s just a stupid thing – a suicide note without the suicide.'”

The album has actually crept into my “Top 5” list which goes something like (in no particular order):

– Tonight’s the Night: Neil Young

– Heartbreaker: Ryan Adams (even if it is named after a Mariah Carey song.)

– The Beatles (The White Album): The Beatles (sure, Abbey Road is a/the masterpiece, but I’ve always loved the chaotic underbelly of the Beatles…for me, this is pure music perfection.)

– Highway 61 Revisited: Bob Dylan (if you haven’t listened to this album all the way through with headphones on, you haven’t lived.)

– Nevermind: Nirvana (the album that made me like music and changed my life and my generation.)

It’s difficult to nail down a “Top 5” but it’s really difficult to nail down a Top 10 or a Top 25. We’ll do that another day.

That’s because today, It’s Neil Young’s birthday. So do him and yourself a favor and give “Tonight’s the Night” a listen today (or tonight).

Jewish Temple’s Existence Questioned by Palestinian Negotiator

Whatever your persuasion on the question of the Jewish state and modern Near East politics, this is an interesting (disturbing) use of revisionism for political gain…

Jewish Temples never existed, says top Palestinian negotiator: “The Jewish Temples never existed and Israel has been working to ‘invent’ a Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem, the chief Palestinian negotiator asserted.

Ahmed Qurei, the Palestinian Authority official leading all peace talks with the Jewish state, made the controversial statements in a small media briefing Wednesday attended by WND as well as by a Palestinian media outlet and an Arab affairs correspondent for a major Israeli newspaper.”

Let us all pray for more education rather than propaganda

Wilco Performing The Wilco Song on Colbert Report

Wilco performed an exclusive song on The Colbert Report last night. Before the performance, Jeff Tweedy sat down with Colbert for a pretty funny interview. Here are a few highlights:

Colbert introducing the band at the beginning of the show says: “True Wilco fans will listen to the show on vinyl.” Awesome.

Colbert: I like your American flag lapel pin.
Tweedy: Where’s yours?
Colbert: I gave mine to Barack Obama.

Tweedy then gives Colbert an Obama tshirt.

Colbert: You offer a song for free on your website. Are you a socialist?
Tweedy: We’re just lousy capitalists. We thought free market meant free.

The song is interestingly good… Tweedy said it’s called “Wilco: The Song.” Main refrain is that “Wilco will love you baby.” Odd, but a good rocker from the gang. And it was neat to see them crammed onto the small Colbert stage. Looks like they were enjoying it. Of course Nels had his whole guitar-to-the-amp distortion thing going on.

http://www.hulu.com/embed/G8nYYhUzrpavlkFMFD_U_w/693/1235

Hulu – The Colbert Report: Thu, Oct 30, 2008 – Watch the full episode now.

I Miss Larry

It’s always late at night (it’s almost 3am now) that I miss Larry the most. It’s been less than a week, but reading a great blog post somewhere about an obscure Southern writer or statesman or chef and her or his connection to the Civil War or some county in Tennessee or Kentucky or Alabama or South Carolina makes me wish Larry was there to receive the email link I really want to send him.

Muscle memory is a hard thing to forget.

Love you, Larry.

Andy Hoefer Remembers Larry McGehee

My friend, classmate and Fraternity brother Andy Hoefer wrote this beautiful piece on Larry and his passing.

Andy is now the Marion L. Brittain Fellow at Georgia Tech’s School of Literature Communication and Culture and recently became a Ph.D. himself.

Well worth your time…

I’ve been thinking about Larry today, and I keep coming back to two things he said to me, once and many years ago, the other, frequently and as recently as a few months back.

The first came during my final semester at Wofford. That term, my Thursday nights had an odd rhythm: from 3 until 7 or 8, I spent in Larry’s Religion 340 seminar. About 6:30, I mentally checked out, consumed with the bacchanal that awaited. From 8 or 9 on, I drank. Heavily. Larry, a veteran teacher and a former fraternity boy himself, saw right through me. And he never confronted me about it; that wasn’t his way. He dropped a hint, though, and one day, began a sentence with a prepositional phrase that remains burned into my brain: “Andy, when you’re ready to really pursue the life of the mind….”

I have no idea what followed. I was too consumed with the idea that, apparently, something called “the life of the mind” existed, and in a few months, I had already evinced the fact that I was not yet ready for it! And thus, my academic career began in earnest. I wanted to know what the hell he was talking about. And I wanted to prove to him that I could handle it.

And yet, what I ultimately learned from Larry was not a lesson about hardwork, or seriousness, or intellectual rigor, but a lesson about love. Larry McGehee loved as fully as anyone I know: his family, his students, history, literature, food, music, all of it. And though I can’t remember the topic of our last conversation, I do remember how it ended: Larry said, “Love you,” and I repeated the words stiffly, uncomfortably. I know this because our conversations always ended this way; each time we talked, the words came a little more easily for me, but never with the ease that Larry offered them.

As I’ve thought about Larry for the last few weeks, I’ve realized that the love Larry expressed for each of us and the deep and abiding concern for rigorous intellectual and academic pursuit were not two distinct concerns, but in fact, facets of the same impulse. And if I learned anything from him, it’s that a love of ideas and a love of those around you are the same thing. Larry taught me that the life of the mind didn’t preclude a life outside the mind–a life rich in family, invested in community. For Larry, knowledge should be sought in service to others. Intellectual pursuit, he taught me, is invigorating, but it is really only of substance when we share those ideas with others, and when we listen to others (something he did so much better than I do). Inquiry should be like prayer, and the exchange of ideas a sort of communion: we should think hard about things, and our questions should push us beyond the regular limitations of understanding and closer to divine elements within ourselves. And we must not keep to ourselves rather, we should rejoice in the exchange of ideas and in the possibility that we might transcend the divide between the Self and the Other. When we do this–when we ask questions relentlessly, when we thrill in the pursuit of knowledge and the exchange of ideas, and when we begin to use those ideas to improve ourselves and the lives of those around us–we realize the best of ourselves. I can’t imagine anything closer to the ideal of agape than that.

Larry never seemed to far from the best of himself, and while he’d probably hit me for saying this, that quality brought him as a close to saintliness as I’m likely to encounter in my life. I miss him already.

Prof. Larry T. McGehee Obituary

I’m still processing all of this. I’m realizing (more than anything), I’ll be processing this for a very long time…

10/27/2008

SPARTANBURG, SC– Dr. Larry Thomas McGehee, 72, died Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008, at his residence. Born May 18, 1936, in Paris, Tenn., he was the son of the late George Eugene McGehee and Margaret Thomas McGehee. He was educated in Paris, Tenn., public schools, and was a graduate of Transylvania University and Yale University. He was retired vice president and professor of religion at Wofford College, former chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Martin, and former administrator of the University of Alabama. Dr. McGehee was an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Beta Kappa, and Kappa Alpha Order. He wrote a weekly column, ‘Southern Seen’ for more than 100 newspapers.

Survivors are his wife, Elizabeth Boden McGehee; two daughters, Elizabeth Hathhorn McGehee of Baltimore, Md., and Margaret Thomas McGehee and her husband, Daniel Paul Parson, of Clinton, S.C.

A memorial celebration will be made public at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Elizabeth B. and Larry T. McGehee Endowed Scholarship Fund at Wofford College, 429 N. Church St., Spartanburg, S.C. 29303; to the Library of Transylvania University; or to the Library of the University of Tennessee at Martin.

An online guest register is available at www.floydmortuary.com.

Wofford College President Benjamin B. Dunlap expressed his thoughts about Dr. McGehee:

Larry McGehee was many things, as can be said of most highly accomplished people. But, in his heart, he was a classicist—it was he who coined ‘A Classical College’ as a tag-line for Wofford. By classical he meant more than a fondness for tradition. He meant a passionate devotion of the best that has been thought and said. After becoming president, I often referred to Larry as ‘our wise old Nestor,’ and, recognizing the Homeric allusion, Larry always smiled.

Larry was also an ordained minister and a theologian, and, if Saint Paul was right about faith, hope and love, Larry not only excelled in all three departments but agreed that love was the one that mattered most. He loved his family, he loved the South—especially Kentucky—and he loved Wofford College. Only his students over the past decade can truly say how much he loved those he met in the classroom, but nothing could have pleased him more than their decision to create a scholarship at Wofford in his name. On the last day of his life he watched a Wofford football game, not because football was of paramount importance to him but because one of his students was playing on the team.

Larry was a friend to all of us, and his death causes us great grief. If I might say something to make Larry smile again, it would be to note that, in addition to his two beloved daughters, he also had many sons whom he had taught and advised in the manner of wise old Nestor. And, having said that, I would add a classical reference from Homer that describes the rough and often tragic efforts of the Greeks who’d fought at Troy to find their way back home: ‘Only Nestor, who had always shown himself just, prudent, generous, and respectful to the gods, returned safe and sound to Pylus, where he enjoyed a happy old age, untroubled by wars, and surrounded by bold, intelligent sons. For so Almighty Zeus decreed.’

Welcome home, old friend.”

Wofford College – Obituary: Dr. Larry T. McGehee

My Hero: Prof Larry McGehee

To me, Larry McGehee is Wofford College.

This morning, Rion called me and said “we were waking up in a world without Larry.” It still hasn’t hit me yet, but that’s tough. I’m not sure when it will hit me.

As a little bit of background, Larry McGehee was the quirky professor/teacher/friend/mentor/hero that you always see in the movies but never meet in real life. And when you did meet him, you never got past the sly grin and warm heart. His office was a safe haven for the misfits, troublemakers, rabble rousers, jocks, geeks, dorks, eggheads, frat boys, Bible thumpers and homecoming queens.

I’ve often wondered what the Kingdom of God might look like here on earth. Little did I know it was there in Larry’s upstairs office in the Papadopoulos Building. With images of Shaker art and pictures with students over the years (not to mention the books… all the books), his little office was not of this world.


Larry was known for his poignant yet whimsical writing as well as his madras jackets (especially among the students of his Religion 340 class of which I was honored to be a part):

One of my favorite sides of Larry was his interaction with students on Facebook. Up until the end, he was there with a tongue-in-cheek:

“Oct 10: Larry is notiicing that 80% of the Wofford students have more travel experience than Sarah Palin!”

I also loved Larry for his amazing ability to synthesize religion, politics and history. Beyond his SouthernSeen collection, nowhere is that more apparent than in these three Amazon reviews he did.

I traded emails with Larry just a few days ago after I found an 8 year old stack of emails between us that I had printed out. I had just moved to New Haven, CT to start my first year at Yale and wound up living across the street from where he and Betsy lived when they were in New Haven. Larry was the absolute reason I went to Yale. Those emails are absolute treasures. We both had a good laugh about them.

Larry passed on to me a number of things over the years between books, banners, ideas, optimisms and hugs. The one thing I’ll cherish the most is the knowledge that he was always there with a sly grin and open car door to a meal at Ike’s. He still is.

Love you much, Larry.