The Squared Circle: The Art of Selling

Describing pro wrestling as "performance art" may strike some people as ridiculous! But I don't know of any better description. It is a performance in the sense that the action in the ring is not designed to be a legitimate contest but a form of entertainment for the audience. And it is an art in the sense that an evocative performance requires skill. Not every painter is an artist, not every singer is an artist, not every wrestler is an artist. But those who excel in the skills to paint a beautiful painting, or sing a moving song, or execute an entertaining match, are truly artists.

Philosophical Fridays: Intelligent Design, the Nature of Science, and Truth

Many of you know that my wife was diagnosed with cancer last August, and since that time she has undergone chemotherapy and radiation to reduce the tumor, successful surgery to remove the tumor, and is now in the process of follow-up chemotherapy to prevent recurrence of the tumor. We appreciate all the prayers we have received, and all of the tremendous care we have been given by our fantastic doctors and nurses.

The Traditional Conservative and the Fiscal Cliff

In his discussion of the influence of Edmund Burke on conservative thinking, Russell Kirk made this observation: 

The modern spectacle of vanished forests and eroded lands, wasted petroleum and ruthless mining, national debts recklessly increased until they are repudiated, and continual revision of positive law, is evidence of what an age without veneration does to itself and its successors. (The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, Kindle Locations 779-781). 

Kirk's comments on careless stewardship of the environment deserve more attention in a later blog post, but for today I want to focus on his trenchant critique of debt, "national debts recklessly increased until they are repudiated." 

Sermon: The Perfect Work of Adversity (James 1:2-4)

I have been preaching on maturity, and yesterday I focused on the Book of James. Here is a skeleton outline of my lesson:

I.  Count it all joy when you encounter various trials (James 1:2)
 

In the Squared Circle - Memphis Style

Back in the days of the old territory system, before the WWE monopolized and homogenized the product of pro wrestling, each territory had its own style. Usually, this style reflected the personality of the primary promoter of the territory. For example, the old AWA territory (the upper midwest), usually featured lots of wrestlers with legitimate amateur backgrounds, since the head of that territory, Verne Gagne, was a great college wrestling at the Univ. of Minnesota. Similarly, Eddie Graham liked guys with good amateur backgrounds in his Florida territory, and throughout his career he was a big supporter of amateur wrestling in the Tampa area.

The wrestling I grew up on, however, was much different. The Memphis territory was known for a wild, bloody, brawling style of wrestling.

Chuck Hagel and the Sad State of "Conservativism"

President Obama's choice of former senator Chuck Hagel to be his new Secretary of Defense should be the cause for wide Republican support. Hagel is a decorated Vietnam veteran and a Republican with a lifetime rating of 84% from the American Conservative Union with a strong traditional conservative voting record. But not so fast. Senator Lindsey Graham expressed dismay at Hagel's nomination:

Tolkein, Kirk, and the Forgotten Conservatism

A few weeks ago I began posting reflections on the nature of conservativism, drawing heavily from Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. Kirk was the intellectual godfather of modern American conservativism, though sadly, far more Americans know of Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh than Kirk. Hannity, Limbaugh, and others who are part of the media-entertainment complex that poses as conservatism are in reality ideologues (perhaps even demagogues), and thus are the antithesis of the conservativism defined by Kirk as "the negation of ideology."

In today's post I'd like to draw attention to a strain of conservative thinking that Kirk wrote about in The Conservative Mind that also happens to be reflected in The Hobbitt and The Lord of the Rings trilogy penned by J.R.R. Tolkein. That line of thinking is usually called agrarianism.