Anybody there? Keith? Aaron? Jonathan? . . . [sound of crickets chirping] . . . Anybody?

There’s a hockey player with the name “Greg Gilbert.” That’s hard to compete with. 3ABC has a long way to go before it’ll be able to stand toe-to-toe with the NHL.

There’s also a “Greg Gilbert Parties” that comes up. Wait, no, how do I erase that??….

Ok, I promise I want drown this blog into a pool of silliness.  Something more serious is to come.  But during some down time at work, I thought I would do a little “googling.”  Here’s what I found: Gentlemen, if you google our names individually, the second to fourth hit you get is TABC’s home page.  (That’s a good thing, but I don’t know when anyone would ever have the need to google my name.)  Well, that’s the case with all our names except Greg’s.  Aaron had the most and Bruce’s hit on TABC before it did anything with the library.  Don’t feel left out Greg.  Your name must be too common, but I’m sure you have a better way of viewing it.  If you want a good laugh, click on images. 

If the Drudge Report is part of your daily appetite then you’ve probably already read this article.  If not, it’s like evolution but only in reverse.

Yet, another reason why Mac users have had their minds enlightened! 

On Sunday, March 5th, these are the words thousands are going to hear as Hollywood’s biggest night shines in all it’s pomp and show. Being the movie fan that I am (watching a movie is what I enjoy most when I’m exhausted), I can’t ignore the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ five nominations for Best Picture. These nominations paint a moral picture of our culture, a picture that Christians must view through a biblical lens.

First, you have Ang Lee’s much talked about and debated Brokeback Mountain based on E. Annie Prolux’s story of two cowboys who, as Oprah described it, were on the “down-low before it was called such.” (Rate R)

Second, Bennett Miller’s Capote tells the story of the egoistical, homosexual Trueman Capote and his manipulative use of people to complete, what he believes to be, a revolutionizing work, In Cold Blood, a story of how four family members were brutually murdered. (Rated R)

Third, Paul Haggis’ Crash is several stories of multiple characters covering a two day span in the city of Los Angeles. Crash unashamedly deals with “gritty” issue of urban racism as these multiple characters’ lives “crash” into one another. (Rated R)

Fourth, Steven Spielberg’s political divisive, Munich, isn’t a story about the 1972 abduction and murder of eleven Israeli atheletes, but about Avner’s, one of five men recruited by the Israeli government to revenge one by one those responsilbe for the murder, plummet to the depraved level of his enemies. (Rated R)

Fifth, George Clooney looks back at a time of fearful threats from Communism during the 1950’s, particularly the fears of Senator Joseph McCarthy, in Good Night, and Good Luck. Senator McCarthy campaigned a blacklist of Communist sympathizers and spies believed to be working in the State Department and other US governmental services. Good Night and Good Luck depicts CBC’s broadcast journalist, Edward Murrow who popularized the phrase “good nigt and good luck”, challenging McCarthy’s accusations. (Rated PG)

What a moral landscape these movies paint for the viewer - the acceptance of homosexuality, the surreal portrait of narcissism, the injustice of racism, the despair of revenge, and, positively, the conviction for truthfulness. This is Hollywood’s depiction of serious moral issues, issues that the church has a responsibility to respond to. When Oprah says that the “down-low” is “at least complicated”, the church responds, “No, it’s not simply ‘complicated.’ It’s wrong. It’s sinful.”

On Sunday night, March 5th, when Hollywood is boasting in it’s handling of morality, TABC will be praising God who has revealed his will. We won’t look to Hollywood’s standard of acceptance but to the word of God. Our God has righted all wrongs, reconciled all peoples, and revealed all truth in the person of Jesus Christ!

(I nominate Focus on the Family’s movie review for your “favorites” list!)

Hey Bruce, Dorothy Sayers was super-duper funny too. This contemporary of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien lamented that people in the pews have some serious misconceptions about theology. She attempted to put into words what some of those misconceptions were. Here’s a snippet:

Q.: What does the Church think of the Holy Ghost?

A.: I don’t know exactly. He was never seen or heard of till Whitsunday. There is a sin against him that damns you forever, but nobody knows what it is.

Q.: What is the doctrine of the Trinity?

A.: “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible and the whole thing incomprehensible.” Something put in by theologians to make it more difficult—nothing to do with daily life or ethics . . .

Q.: What does the Church think of sex?

A.: God made it necessary to the machinery of the world, and tolerates it, provided the parties (a) are married, and (b) get no pleasure out of it.

Sayers, of course, had an orthodox doctrine of God and, I trust, a biblical understanding of sexuality. However, she was a winsome apologist and knew how to get the church thinking about doctrine. Funny stuff. There’s more, but I’ll leave it there . . .