Grissom Gazette

30 November 2020 Michael Strauss came to speak at chapel.  Here is what he said.   Is It Time To Dethrone The Big Bang Theory?

I Like my Coffee Like I Like my Men Sliding off the Roof of my Car as I Drive Away   November 19, 2020 I will leave it to my Dear Reader to decide whether and to what degree to determine if and when such an allusion to men sliding off cars entails any socially undesirable suggestions. But what I can say from my studies "in proper theology and geometry" is that Man is created in God's image. This means he enjoys in some small measure the autonomy of God. We feel funny (and maybe even do not sleep as well, in the vain attempt to transform ourselves into a consciously cauterized, abominably amputated diminution of what He intended us to be and become in our fleeting, wilting grass-flowers semblance of time on this here lovely earth. Inasmuch, however, as our spirits may quicken to life, however fleeting, we are ennobled. We rise up from the tepid, quotidian level of banal existence, and we stand up boldly, in a renewed awareness of our stature in Christ. It is then tha...

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I do not feel like it. I believe in God even when I discover that His judgment allows zero chance for so many of my good friends and loved ones to get into heaven: Those committed to viewing as morally acceptable the celebration of various extra-biblical preferences.  It is sobering to realize that we do not have so much freedom a we may have thought. I had a professor here at the local seminary who said that we may worry that when we are in heaven, we will have our joy tarnished by the understanding that some of our loved ones are not there, but rather are in hell.  He said he believed that a new understanding would arise, to where we fully understand that those in Hell go there freely, in accordance with their most sincere preferences. And they therein belong there, if only because it is the only place of all possible options (two) that they want to be.  Most saliently, they do not want to be ...

Deceptive Disadvantage:  Young pastors are at a disadvantage in listening capacity. This is not entirely due to many of them being Millennials, either. Rather, they also suffer from not having suffered all that much, or not as much as they will have suffered by the time they are forty or fifty, and have seen life circumstances that can be trying, like loving and bringing their teens up through the travails and life exigencies of high school and college.  Suffering drives one to depend on God, and people will not only sacrifice more for their children than for themselves, but suffer more vicariously for their children when they are hit with difficulties.  This pounding is used by God for building maturity.  This maturity enables young pastors to grow in their ability to listen. There is nothing wrong with being "wet behind the ears" (for that is the nature of being low in experience), but it hurts one's growth when he fails to be respectful towards his elders, assumin...