the jigawatt blog reader poll 1

Which one of these three words do you think best describes the founding fathers of America?

1. Athiests
2. Deists
3. Christians


Note: This is not a scientific poll.

Pictures of our new house

Well, it's not our house just yet. We plan to close on May 12th. But, nearly all the paperwork is finished. We just need to finalize our insurance plans and get the utilities transferred to our name.


Enjoy the pictures.

Sad News

Our little hamster, Cotton, died today. She was about two years old. I'm not sure what illness she had, but she'd had sores all over for about a month. We tried feeding her more fresh veggies and giving her more exercise, but she never really got better. These past few days, she was not very active at all, and we could tell she was having trouble getting around. I buried her out in the woods beside our apartment complex.

We named her Cotton because Steph got her for me for our 2nd anniversary. The traditional gift for your 2nd anniversary is cotton, and we had not gotten each other anything made of cotton, so we named her that to fulfill the tradition.

She was a very fun pet. I recommend hamsters to anyone; they're loads of fun, and don't require nearly as much attention as dogs or cats. (I also highly recommend dogs to people who have the time and energy to give them.)


Here is a video of Cotton doing one of her favourite things that she would do, escape from her cage!

Common Grace Brainstorming (part 2)

One thing I thought about when I read Bill O'Reilly's conversation with professing Christian (I'm being nice here), John Shelby Spong. Spong, as usual, was in the midst of denying the truth of God as taught by Jesus. For example, he had this to say about prayer,

[I pray] to get in tune with the God presence in this world so that I can be a part of that God presence.

God presence? Sounds kinda like pantheism to me. Another very telling quote from him was this:

[R]eligion, I believe, in its highest and purest form, calls us to respect the innate dignity of every human being and help them, and help them become all that they can be.

But, what caused me an even greater increase in blood pressure (think: righteous anger) was when I read Shelby say

I think Jesus was a revolutionary.

Mr. Spong, Jesus was indeed a revolutionary, but not at all in the way that you believe he was.

It grieves me greatly when I see people try to divorce the moral teachings of Jesus from the person of Jesus. John Shelby Spong is a non-Christian, and he is bound for eternal judgment for his sins. If he does not repent of his sins and believe in the gospel as proclaimed by Jesus and the apostles, he will indeed suffer that eternal judgment. I would encourage anyone who comes into contact with Spong to tell him as much, and compel him to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But then as I was reading the interview, I stopped and considered something. For reasons that are His own, God has not regenerated Spong's heart. But He has allowed him to be a 'moral' man in many respects. (I use the word 'moral' in quotes to indicate that I'm talking about a morality before man, which is often in accord with a portion of the revealed will of God. A true "capital m" Morality is conformity with the revealed will of God in toto, and as part of that, a giving of glory to God as the impetus for those moral actions). And, perhaps he has gleaned some of his 'morality' from the teachings of Jesus. Could this be another instance of God's common grace? Could it be that God has allowed so many non-Christian "professing" believers to embrace part of Christ's teaching as a means of dispensing His common grace upon the earth? It is certainly good (in an earthly sense) for people to speak out against racism, world hunger, violence, terrorism, and the like. I believe that these beliefs are inconsistent with all but a Christian worldview, but perhaps that is one of those "glorious inconsistencies" that is an expression of God's common grace.

If I ever write a book on common grace, I can imagine a chapter entitled "Common Grace and the Will of God". And maybe also, "Glorious Inconsistencies".


Just a thought.

Needs and Wants

On my one hour communte to work each morning, I usually listen to the radio. More often that not, I have it tuned to KARN 102.9. A particular commercial plays each day at about 7. This commercial touts the glories of "free" broadcast radio. It says in part,

They say the best things in life are free, so why do we pay so much for our basic information and entertainment needs?

Did I miss something? When did information and entertainment become needs? Food, clothing, shelter, and entertainment.


Yeah, that sounds about right.

We made an offer!

Well, we are one step closer to Louisiana citizenship. We made an offer on a house this past weekend! Pending a satisfactory home inspection, we'll be homeowners sometime in May.

Louisiana Residency

Louisiana has some odd laws.

As you know from a previous post, I have been accepted to LSU's graduate school. As I was looking over my acceptance letter, I noticed that I was classified as a non-Louisiana resident. This did not worry me too much, but then I saw that the fee for out of state residents is $4,150 per semester! Yikes!

I immediately proceeded to investigate my options for getting the in-state tuition instead of the +$4,150 out of state tuition.


As it turns out, if we buy a house in Louisiana, which we were already planning on doing, then I can get the LA resident tuition. Whew!