Sports

(Tim, from my son, Taylor) Prior to moving on field after accepting my second call, I listened to a pile of sermons by my predecessor. (I recommend this discipline highly if you're about to move to another church, or even if you're already there and want a shortcut to understanding the congregation's strengths and weaknesses.) After hours and hours of sermons, I was intimate with this man--and not just his hermeneutics and exegesis, but his personality even down to his vocabulary. Summing up what I'd learned, I told my wife, Mary Lee, "His favorite word is 'authenticity.'"

Where did that word come from, anyway?

A facile, glib, age whose heroes and heroines are actors...

(Tim, w/thanks to Taylor) Read this account of the man traded for ten bats, and remember we actually are our brother's keeper. The men who dished out the merciless taunts, chants, and catcalls at Mr. Odom's last appearance in a baseball game were accomplices to murder.

We can spill a lot of words talking about justice and mercy, AIDS orphans, and being missional while not giving a tinker's cuss about the man next to us on the bus, in the carpool, or sitting by himself Sunday morning during Lord's Day worship.

If they checked John Odom's cell phone, would they find a single call from a follower of Jesus Christ during this poor man's last week of life? One of us had a chance with him. One of us knew--I'm sure of it.

(Tim, w/thanks to David Wegener) The story's lead line is: "A day after winning her first 800-meter world title amid a gender-test controversy, the father of South African teenager Caster Semenya dismissed speculation his daughter is not a woman."

So they're going to test her. How? Again, the story reports:

The gynecologist, endocrinologist, and internal medicine specialist I understand, but the psychologist? The "expert on gender?"

What in the world?

Well, I guess we should have known when the talk was about gender--not sex. As I've tried to say, but found few hearers, gender is always a social construct, whereas sex is body parts. So where will they end of up on this one?

(Tim) Recent tests showed South African runner, Caster Semenya, had three times the normal level of the male hormone, testosterone, prior to her latest competition. This led sports authorities to order what are widely being called "gender tests" to determine whether, when she blew her fields away in recent races, Miss Semenya had an unfair advantage. An errant fax number brought what should have been a private matter into the public eye.

Returning to Johannesburg following stunning victories at the World Athletics Championships, Miss Semenya told reporters...

(Tim: Under the post, What godly eldership looks like with a 30something single man..., PCA teaching elder and church planter in Taiwan, Joel Linton, made this comment. It's so good, I'm promoting it to the main page.)

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If men pick godly, mature Christian young women, these women would not be turned off by lack of money.

The question I think for the women (if they are mature and secure in the Lord) is are these men "with it" in the sense of being responsible for their personal lives and for others -- or are they barely getting by as single men. I think women do not want to have to be "moms" to these men. Women want to find men to whom they can willingly submit and follow.

I meet so many single 30's men who are passive, do not take the initiative or responsibility, and just seem lost as far as what their life is all about. They might hold a steady job (some do not), but they are just working to work. They might have a decent car and a decent house and lots of videos, video games, sound systems, etc. installed in their homes, but they do not really know what to do with each day...

(Tim) Taylor played varsity soccer this past year and this pic ran in the Bloomington paper. Am I proud of my son? Yes, I am. More for his heart than soccer, though. He submits to authority! Can you imagine that? No matter how normal it is to you, it's always amazing to me. After all, I was his age a few days ago, and submission wasn't ground zero in my character traits.

If your daughters are home schooled and you think he's handsome, just send me an e-mail with proposed dowry. We're building a house.

JK.

(Tim, w/thanks to Taylor) Shortly before his team meets up with the Colts, Jets Coach Rex Ryan had this to say about Peyton Manning: "Shoot, if (the Colts) want to get rid of him, we'll go ahead and take him."

Grinning ear to ear.

Then he said: “Oh, hold up. That was my wish list for Santa Claus.”

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man….
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

(Tim, w/thanks to many) Like Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, Jim Dobson's breakout book, Dare to Discipline, was rejected by many publishers before one gave it a try--in Dobson's case, my father-in-law's Tyndale House Publishers. Later, Dad Taylor gave money to Jim to do a radio show, and the rest is history.

I am not ashamed of Dr. James Dobson. Rather, I've long expressed my deep gratitude for Jim's work on the air and in print. Few men have contributed so much Biblical instruction to my flocks. When the history of the late twentieth century is written, it will become clear Jim was one of the most courageous warriors for truth and mercy and justice in these United States.

You may have noticed on this blog that I've never mentioned the name of that publication in Wheaton calling itself Christianity Today. One reason is their sotto voce attacks on Jim Dobson. Among Wheaton's detelligentsia, it's hip to smirk when Dobson's name comes up, and CT has taken its cue and place among the pea-shooters.

This has been very discouraging for Jim; it's hurt him, his wife Shirley, and their children.

I can hear the exclamations: "Hello! How does Tim Keller feel about your criticism, dude? Something about the splinter and the log!"

Fair enough...

(Tim) Butler's annual budget for basketball is 1.7 million--less than half the annual salary of Duke's Mike Krzyzewski. Go Butler?

Uh, yeah.

(Tim) This is a safe place to talk about that unAmerican activity known as World Cup soccer. We've made more seats at the table for the younger generation, women, ethnic leaders, and global church representatives. So talk away, dear brothers and sisters, and let's see if we can become more diverse; more inclusive of different voices.

That first goal was...

Readers looking for the moral behind the Caster Semenya morality play are to understand: 

The lesson of the past 11 months is that gender is not a black and white issue but the IAAF must surely be satisfied that it is now a level playing field.

The original concern was that if Semenya’s testosterone levels were raised, she could be receiving a muscle-building advantage. One can only assume that this has now been addressed.

"Been addressed?"

So we presume the IAAF--appointed medical committee has doped this black South African athlete...

(Tim, w/thanks to Taylor) Vladimir Ladyzhenskiy is dead. It had come down to the final at the World Sauna Championships in Heinola, Finland, last Saturday, and he placed second. But they couldn't give him his prize.

Seconds before he died Ladyzhenskiy was still competing, giving a thumbs up to the medics watching through a window (along with a thousand spectators). The sauna was above boiling--230 degrees fahrenheit, to be exact--but neither Ladyzhenskiy nor five-time champion Timo Kaukonen were willing to lose. The other finalists exited around three minutes and Kaukonen had just three minutes more to wait until Ladyzhenskiy's death crowned him the six-time champion.

When medics entered the sauna...

Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, I implore you, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and give praise to Him; and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me.” (Joshua 7:19)

(Tim) MLB's pitching superstar, Roger Clemens, has been indicted for lying and obstruction of justice in testimony he gave before Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs. In "Pettitte's Words and Character Carry Weight," the Times' George Vecsey compares Clemens to his longtime friend, Andy Pettitte, whose testimony carried the most weight in assuring Clemens' indictment.

Vecsey reports Clemens is "the alpha male in that friendship, the man with the huge gymnasium on his property, the man who knew how to train his way to eternal youth, to the Hall of Fame one day."

And Pettitte?

Vecsey says he's "humble" and that when he provided testimony before Congress, he...

(Tim) I may live in Bloomington but I went to UW.

(Tim) Darth Hoodie. Chuckling I is.

(Tim: this just in from our American African correspondent, David Wegener.)

Well the World Rankings are out in Track and Field. Here is a summary:

The man of the year was David Rudisha, a young 21-year old Kenyan. He set two world records this year in the 800-meter run, almost breaking the 1:41 barrier. That means he runs four consecutive 200s in 25.2 seconds. Amazing. Nice that there's no hint of any scandal attached to his name. No amazing improvements from 2009, no bulging muscles, no yellow eyes, etc.

Not so with the top American, David Oliver. He runs the 110-meter high hurdles. His thigh muscles are so big, they're hard to believe. He set an American record in his event but was just shy of the world record. He went undefeated.

Usain Bolt was injured this year so Americans took the top rankings in the 100- and 200-meter runs. Still Bolt's Facebook page records 950,000 hits per day. His coach says the best of Bolt is yet to come.

Jeremy Wariner was back on top of the 400-meter run. The Bejing Olympic champion, LaShawn Merritt, is still serving a drug disqualification. He admited he took something he shouldn't have taken but maintains it was not to help his performance on the track.

Africans continue to dominate the distance races...

(Tim) On the subject of Joel Northrup forfeiting his state tournament wrestling match out of deference to a woman, one reader of this Baylyblog post called our readers' attention to a comment by a California high school wrestling coach on another web site. The coach's comment (No. 16) ended with this:

The Israeli army did extensive experiments in the 1960′s and 70′s trying to incorporate women into combat roles along side males, at a time when the survival of Israel was hanging in the balance. But the results were so disastrous, that they were soon abandoned. They found that men would routinely risk themselves and the units safety, and even abandon mission completion, whenever a female member of their combat unit was captured, or even injured. This protective role seemed to be so hardwired into these young men, that it was deemed impossible to “train out” of them. The Israelis determined that a boy would have to be trained from birth to disregard a foundational understanding (call it God given, or evolved) concerning the importance of women, as THE essential element in the continuum of human existence. To try and remove that understanding from the thought process of young men would result, I feel, in a world not worth occupying.

Few things are more indicative of these United States' moral and military bankruptcy than our ideological promotion of women in combat (of which women wrestlers are a sub-species), and few things are more indicative of the Reformed world's weakening commitment to the doctrines of Scripture than the PCA General Assembly AISCOWIM's split down the middle on whether or not to condemn women in combat (as well as the arguments made on the floor of GA when AISCOWIM presented its two reports). While it's true committee members talked much about the spirituality of the church, during internal debate it was always clear that...

(Tim) If you care about baseball, check out the lists in this good piece by Joe Posnanski...

(Tim) If you need your eyes opened to what the NCAA actually does, read this article. But please don't think I'm linking to it because of bitterness at Butler's loss. My own opinion is that Butler was being protected from the wickedness of pride. I'm convinced their loss was God's blessing.

And if you're wondering, I don't think the columnist is out of line bringing race into it.

[From Tyree's video opposing sodomite marriage] I'm not political, I approach more from an angle of prayer. As much as people are going to voice their opinions and make those pushes in a negative direction, I feel like athletes, believers or people who are very strong toward marriage, especially in places of position need to really take this opportunity to voice it. Marriage is one of those things that is the backbone of society. So if you redefine it, it changes the way we educate our children, it changes the perception of what is good, what is right, what is just.

[Tyree twittered] People of faith ... direct some prayers my way. Got darts comin from every direction. Blessed are those persecuted for His name's sake.

The ethics professor at the Presbyterian Church in America's Covenant Theological Seminary told Christianity Today that he opposed sodomy laws. I wrote him a letter expressing my concern over his efforts to legalize sodomy and Covenant's president at the time, Bryan Chapell, wrote to reassure me that his professor was not going soft on homosexuality. Duly noted.

Now, the battle has moved on to sodomite marriage and "marriage equality" is all the rage...

(TB: this from David Wegener, our American-African correspondent on home assignment here in these United States for the coming year.)

Reading the recent article about Pat Summit, the head woman’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, has put me in a reflective mood. If you read the article and are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll feel pretty sad. Sorry that Pat Summit has early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Sorry that her marriage ended in divorce. Sorry that she’s given her life to basketball. Sorry for her son Tyler.

Sorry Pat is such a man--this last idea was the dominant impression I had after reading the piece by Sally Jenkins (who calls Pat her best friend).

When doctors at Mayo Clinic told her she had Alzheimer’s and urged her to retire, she responded, “Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?” Jenkins describes her as “a marble pillar, ramrod straight, that seems to have stood for a thousand years, while everything around it falls.” She is characterized by “resolve.” Things like surrender and acceptance and vulnerability have never “come naturally to her.” If you watch the interview and see what it reveals about Tyler’s relationship with his mom, well, it makes you even sadder. Even sick.

She is the most successful coach in women’s sports today...

The Denver Broncos announced this past week their new starting QB is Tim Tebow. Fans the world over had been demanding it as Kyle Orton self-destructed. How will Tebow do and what does it all mean fro the Broncos and Coach John Fox? We wait to see, but make no mistake: on many levels, this is a religious matter. So Tim started the second half of the Broncos last game by saying to his teamates in the first huddle of his tenure, "Believe in me, guys." Good article, and here are a couple...

Cubs masochists like me just received an e-mail formally announcing what the world's known for some time: former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein has been hired as President of Cubs baseball operations. The e-mail was five sentences long. It went out from Cubs.com over the name of Cubs owner Tom Ricketts and here was the money sentence: "Today, we took another big step toward that goal by announcing today that Theo Epstein has joined the Chicago Cubs as the new President of Baseball Operations reporting directly to me."

That's about right for Cubs baseball. "Today we are announcing today..." (TB)

This is really uncomfortable, but quite interesting. Here you have the flip side of the debate over whether earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and 9/11 are acts of God. (TB, w/thanks to Ben C.)