A Golden Harvest
Congratulations to another round of "winners" of the AARDIE (Aardvark Aaward for Raillery, Doctrine, or Intellect in Exposition) — a continuing response to the glut of awards shows and shallow "honors" bestowed by the rest of the world (and the corresponding dearth of similar commendations with which I agree).

Most of this group come from within confessional Lutheranism. However, some come from other places listed in my blogroll. The basic order of posts this time is alphabetical by blog name. However, I grouped the final four into two thematic groups.

As noted in the inaugural post, honorees "are invited to display the coveted (but not in a 10th Commandment manner, please) Golden Aardvark on their own blogs.... [T]wo sizes are available, discreet (above) and "loud and proud" (right)." I leave it to you to decide whether and which to use and whether to place it in the body of the honored post, in a separate post, or in your blog's sidebar. If you do mention receipt of the Aardie, you may certainly link back to this post or to the Alley.

‡ Ted and Rick of Agnus Day often do a marvelous job of illustrating one of the Sunday readings. I imagine that many people, including most of the pastors I know, will get a chuckle out of Ted's response to Rick's tongue biting in this illustration of Mark 6:1-13.

‡ Each blog owner seems to have his or her own opinion about the vocational or avocational aspects of blogging. I think that The Masks of God from Be Strong in the Grace comes really close to my way of thinking while at the same time touching my heart with her memories of her pastor's young son.

‡ The Beast's Lair, which I discovered through The Burr in the Burgh, is a favorite non-Lutheran blog. In God ... Our Only Hope and Greatest Threat, the Beast the the Burr discuss how it is that God moves us both to love and to fear Him.

‡ After a bit of down time, Pastor Klages of A Beggar at the Table came back to profiling heretics with his well-written history of Carpocrates, a noted Gnostic.

‡ Jon Ledetroit of Beggars All examines the importance of language in theology with Getting "Snowed": How Today's Lutherans Are the Unwitting Test Subjects of the Sapir-Wolf Hypothesis.

‡ Not the cop show, not the parable of our Lord — Drag Net, by Stephen Byrnes of Black Cloister points to sources showing how the internet is slowing down and speculating about the problems that might come from increased governmental or corporate involvement.

‡ If you're talking about God and whales, as was Cruce Tectum, you're probably talking about Moby Dick. And if you're going to talk about Moby Dick, I hope you can summarize it as well as did Pastor Krenz.

‡ If a bit of light reading about the "joys" of parenthood interests you, you should enjoy I'm Baa-aack! at Effie's World. All I can add is, "Boy, did I get off easy!"

‡ Rachel Engebretson of Here I Stand remains a favorite young blogger. You'll see why when you read Crosshairs on Good and follow her take on being "offensive."

‡ Okay, now it's time for the sing-along. Please turn in your hymnal Horn+swoggled to Adiaphoron: Anthem for American Christianity. I will up David's ante and offer a special Golden Aardvark to the winning choir.

‡ Almost anything from I Trust When Dark My Road merits Aardie consideration. The Bad Day, including its gallows humor cartoon, really helps illustrate just how depressing depression can be.

‡ Pastor Alms got his commenters rocking with his Springsteen inspired post Rosie, Come Out Tonight at Incarnatus Est.

‡ G.I.G.O. is more than a computer acronym, according to Living Stones. See what she means with Eating from the Dumpster.

‡ Luther at the Movies invokes the FTC as he makes An Immodest Proposal concerning the glut of pseudo-Christians blathering about in these United States.

‡ After seeing many of the various "Luther created Hitler" conspiracy theories, I wondered if anything could be new under that revisionist sun. Evidently some people are still trying to get mileage out of blaming Christianity for Nazism. Uwe Siemon-Netto shows and analyzes some of the recent writings with The Nazis — Pagans or a Heretic's Heirs?

‡ He may be a Part-Time Pundit but John Bambenek is a full-time good writer, including much on life issues. Associated Press Embraces Bias and Supports Abortionists in News Coverage shows how media stylebooks skew reporting on abortion issues and laments the lack of objectivity that turns most "news" organizations into opinion mills.

‡ A few days back, St. James the Hoosier asked his LCMS readers An Open Question as to why we are Lutheran, particularly Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod. Feel free to join in the comments.

‡ With merely A Handful of Nails, Jason Evans of TheologyGeekBlog reminded me of the glory days of The Wittenburg Door by sharing some recent output from the venerable religious satire magazine.

‡ Kobra's short post Calvin=No Gospel triggered a lengthy discussion in the comments as he accused Calvinism of having "no problem with speaking of God apart from mentioning Christ" at Theomony.

‡ Bob Waters of watersblogged! gets into the Iowa caucuses and the politics of the smoke-filled room as he asks, Anybody Got a Cigar?

‡ Ryan Schroeder of What Did Jesus Do gets the double-Aardie for a pair of posts. First he deconstructs the Joel Osteen Bible Pledge and then writes why it is that Satan Loves Church.

‡ In part because it seems so surprising, in part because I went to high school in the 70s, I liked the brief article at World Magazine by Aaron Earls explaining why School's No Longer Out for Alice Cooper.

‡ In different ways, two bloggers had interesting things to write about the Law. The Orthodox Lutheran David Whalen used the Red Hot Chili Peppers to comment How Christians Can Fulfill the Law by Love. A week later, Eric Matthaei (still On the Wittenberg Trail) showed a fine understanding of Gospel and Sacraments as he ripped into The Religion of the Law.

‡ We actually had another double winner — watersblogged! Bob helped us in the "seeing is not believing" department by showing why Reuters Pulls Doctored Photo. Michael McCullough's Stingray ripped into the same news organization and, by extension, much of the mainstream media in Reuters Employee Writes "Zionist Pig" Death Threat.

Keep on writing the good stuff and please remember, winners are invited to link back to this post so more people can discover the wonderful breadth of fine blogging the Aardies seek to expose.

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