At my husband's insistence, I was online early this morning trying to find out why Imus was not on yesterday or today. Not many people I know can take that old grouch first thing everyday, but Mike loves it, and I'm used to it, so it's a disruption to our routine when he's not on. I discovered that Imus is on vacation until Weds the 5th, so that pacified him.

It was a cool 66* when the dogs and I went walking. Mick caught up with us, even though I had tried to slip away without him. He likes to get in front of the dogs when they're on leashes, almost as though he's gloating because he isn't restrained. Maybe he was a drum major in a former life.

I had to quit reading the convention and church news. It was having the same effect on me as when the fundamentalists took over the SBC. I still grieve about that. This statement about the pullout of Christ Church Plano typifies the attitude of those on the progressive side of the scale:

Their rector is one of those dangerous people, found in every religion and every political persuasion, who insist that the only possible "right thinking" is that which conforms to their own. Pray for them anyway, and seek the best for them — but keep them and their kind away from my kids' schools and Sunday school classes, please.

I'm glad it's the fundamentalists who are pulling out this time. Maybe they haven't been as influenced by Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson as much as some claim, even though the most vocal seem to be from Texas. The PP/PP strategy in taking over the SBC was to monopolize all elections and appointments with strict fundamentalists who advocated the inerrancy of the Bible. The easy-going moderates who held to the doctrine of the "priesthood of the believer" were not nearly as politically savvy or ambitious to be in control. Without bishopric oversight, the fundamentalist ministers and laymen met very little serious opposition in their takeover. The apathy and indifference of the average layperson to church politics makes me almost as nervous as the control freaks out there who want a coup d'état.