Summon me, Savior ... This is nice ... for Lent

The wicked one, on the watch, carried me off as booty as I lazily slept.
He led my mind into error; he plundered my spirit and snatched away
The wealth of Thy grace, this arch robber.

So raise me up, as I am fallen, and summon me, Saviour,
Thou who dost will that all men be saved.

Kontakia of St. Romanos, A Prayer.

A perfect gift for your worst enemy ... 15,000 hours of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker

Remember these guys?


Act now: 15,000 hours of Jim and Tammy Faye


TV reruns starring Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? “Best of PTL” DVDs?

Either could happen, says an Atlanta investment banker who plans to sell 15,000 hours of original videotapes from the old PTL Club TV shows at an auction next month.

Ben Dyer, president of Gospel Properties, says he has heard from several possible bidders. They're interested in digitizing these master recordings of the shows featuring televangelism's most famous couple. Then they would present them on cable and satellite TV, on DVDs or as streaming video on the Internet.

Bakker spokeswoman Shar Graham said she was told the tapes have been appraised at $8 million.

The tapes feature Christian talk-shows from 1974 to 1987, including “The Jim and Tammy Show,” “Tammy's House Party,” and “Breakfast with Jim and Tammy.”

“You put them all on a satellite channel and you wouldn't have to hit ‘repeat' for three years,” says Dean Becker, vice chairman of Ocean Tomo, a Chicago-based merchant bank that auctions intellectual property. His firm will handle the “PTL Library” auction March 27 in San Francisco.

The PTL (for Praise the Lord) empire in Fort Mill, S.C., included a hotel, campground and Christian theme park. The centerpiece was always the TV programming, beamed to millions each day. Fans smiled and skeptics winced as Jim Bakker offered upbeat sermons from the couch and Tammy Faye, shedding mascara-tinged tears, sang about Jesus. Guests over the years included Ronald Reagan, Billy Graham, Pat Boone and Art Linkletter.

It all came crashing down in 1987 amid scandal: Jim Bakker paid hush money to keep church secretary Jessica Hahn quiet about their sexual encounter, and PTL defrauded thousands of followers by overselling “lifetime partnerships” in Heritage Village.

The Bakkers eventually divorced. Jim Bakker went to prison for fraud. And in 2007, Tammy Faye Messner died after suffering from colon cancer.

Despite all this disgrace and unhappiness, Dyer and Becker both insist that nostalgia and a hunger to hear the Christian message delivered in a professionally produced setting could make 30-year-old PTL shows popular again, especially with evangelical Christian audiences.

“Many grew up with this playing in their living rooms. It's feel-good,” says Becker. “And of all the potential buyers, not one has brought up that Jim and Tammy had a fall. They just focused on the content.”

Dyer points to the proliferation of 24-hour channels that show vintage TV and inspirational fare.

“Look at the TV Land (channel), which shows reruns of ‘Leave it to Beaver,'” he says. “Baby boomers would enjoy watching Jim and Tammy for nostalgia. And their shows have a timeless Christian message.”

Dyer says there's also the curiosity factor: “People can watch these shows knowing how their story ended. It makes them even more intriguing to watch.”

After the fall of PTL, Dyer says, its video vault was given to a Charlotte area church he could not identify. Then it was purchased by a cable content provider – Dyer wouldn't name him – who planned to use excerpts on a TV music channel. Dyer got the 15,069 tapes (now stored in Georgia) after the cable provider defaulted on a loan from Dyer's company.

Instead of trying to broadcast the PTL shows through Gospel Properties, Dyer says, he decided to auction them to companies that have a track record.

Besides the tapes, the PTL cache includes 16,646 slides, negatives and production stills.

Has Dyer heard from Jim Bakker, now remarried and a televangelist in Branson, Mo.? “We've had conversations with his family,” Dyer says, “and we may have further conversations.”

Graham, Bakker's spokeswoman, said: “He's glad to see (the tapes) are preserved somewhere and in good shape. They're part of his legacy.”

Happy is he ...

An old man was asked, "How do some say, "We see visions of angels?" He replied, "Happy is he who always sees his sins."


The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, page 53, cited by Ellen Muehlberger in "Ambivalence about the Angelic Life: The Promise and Peril of an Ealry Christian Discourse of AScetism" in Journal of Early Christian Studies, Vol. 16 (2008)473.

Ali-Frazier, 1971

Last night, I watched a very nice documentary about the first Ali-Frazier fight in 1971. I am not a big boxing fan but this hour long HBO special put the fight into its historical context. There was background on the two fighters and that period in America which made the fight a powerful symbol of that tumultuous time in the US.

Each fighter came to symbolize, if only for a few months, the divisions so apparent in society. Frazier was the patriotic, hard working, Christian man. Frazier refused to call Ali by his Muslim name but rather continued to call him Cassius Clay. Ali was seen as the draft dodging anti-war Muslim. Ali painted Frazier as the white man's black fighter, as an Uncle Tom. The anti-war counter culture embraced Ali.

Plus, it was an incredible fight.

I recommend it: One Nation Divisible : Ali-Frazier I.

The video is available on youtube in six parts here.

Two good quotes ...

... from "Quotes of the Day".


Fall not in love, therefore; it will stick to your face.
- National Lampoon

Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.
- George F. Will

Well, you cant accuse them of rationalism ...

Mr. Paul D. Apostle's Article on the First Church of Galatia

If Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians was Published in Christianity Today ... letters to the editor would pour in like this one:

Dear Editor:
How arrogant of Mr. Apostle to think he has the right to judge these people and label them accursed. Isn’t that God’s job? Regardless of this circumcision issue, these Galatians believe in Jesus just as much as he does, and it is very Pharisaical to condemn them just because they differ on such a secondary issue. Personally, I don’t want a sharp instrument anywhere near my zipper, but that doesn’t give me the right to judge how someone else follows Christ. Can’t we just focus on our common commitment to Christ and furthering His kingdom, instead of tearing down fellow believers over petty doctrinal matters?
Ed Bilgeway; Tonganoxie, KS


And this one:



Kind Editors:
I happen to be a member of First Christian Church of Galatia, and I take issue with Mr. Apostle’s article. How can he criticize a ministry that has been so blessed by God? Our church has baptized many new members and has made huge in-roads in the Jewish community with our pragmatic view on circumcision. Such a “seeker-sensitive” approach has given the Jews the respect they deserve for being God’s chosen people for thousands of years. In addition, every Gentile in our midst has felt honored to engage in the many edifying rituals of the Hebrew heritage, including circumcision, without losing their passion for Jesus. My advice to Mr. Apostle is to stick to spreading the gospel message of Christ’s unconditional love, and quit criticizing what God is clearly blessing in other churches.
Miriam “Betty” Ben-Hur; Galatia, Turkey

God, cars and death ..

... all in a rock and roll package. Talk about whatever you want, eventually you end up talking about God and death.

Count on it. "Don't let 'em take me to the Cadillac ranch" .

It is great song and a great performance.

Bruce Springsteen, "Cadillac Ranch"

Indulgences Return, and Heaven Moves a Step Closer

NY Times article on the return of indulgences in the Roman church.

Perhaps this one platform all Lutherans could agree on : we don't do indulgences.

Here is a bit of the article:


The indulgence is among the less noticed and less disputed traditions to be restored. But with a thousand-year history and volumes of church law devoted to its intricacies, it is one of the most complicated to explain.

According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.

There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.

Everybody's got a hunger ...

Ive always felt this lyric was a fair description of the experience of fallen-ness, of being a lost person in a lost world.

Plus, it rocks.

Everybody's got a hunger, a hunger they can't resist,
There's so much that you want, you deserve much more than this,
But if dreams came true, oh, wouldn't that be nice,
But this ain't no dream we're living through tonight,
Girl, you want it, you take it, you pay the price.

Bruce Springsteen, Prove it All Night, Darkness on the Edge of Town, 1978.

You can listen to the song here.

His Own Body was life-giving

And verily when He was raising the little daughter of the chief of the Synagogue saying, Maid, arise, He laid hold of her hand, as it is written, giving life, as God, by His All-Powerful command, and again, giving life through the touch of His Holy Flesh, he shews that there was one kindred operation through both. Yea and when He went into the city called Nain, and one was being carried out dead, the only son of his mother, again He touched the bier,saying, Young man, to thee I say, Arise. And not only to His Word gives He power to give life to the dead, but that He might shew that His Own Body was life-giving (as I have said already), He touches the dead, thereby also infusing life into those already decayed. And if by the touch alone of His Holy Flesh, He giveth life to that which is decayed, how shall we not profit yet more richly by the life-giving Blessing when we also taste it ? For it will surely transform into its own good, i.e., immortality, those who partake of it.

Cyril of Alexandria, “Commentary on the Gospel of John,”

When Stallin says dance ...

When Stalin says dance, a wise man dances.
Nikita Khrushchev.

I ran across this in Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Khrushchev said it in reference to the debauched, all night dinners and parties Stalin would host, especially in the post WW II Kremlin. He engineered much forced drunkenness and humiliation.

Stalin was able not only to kill millions but also to rob his closest advisers of their humanity and dignity. Not that these despicable men (accomplices to the murder of millions) deserved pity or respect but Stalin's personality and power acted as a poison at all levels.

The title is nestorian ...

A new movie coming soon :
Mary, Mother of Christ