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Thursday, December 31, 2015

Year in Review - 2015

So 2015 is coming to an end. Often a good time to review and reflect.

First, the blog. According to the statistics, in the approximately 3,480 days I've been doing this, I've posted 3566 articles and had 407,000 pages read since they started counting in 2010. As for what people are reading, still at the top of the list ... Hard Sayings - "Sell all your possessions". Including 142 comments. You can guess why, I'm sure. It would be a difficult one that any sincere Christian might want to research and a good "gotcha" for any skeptic to use. Oddly enough, The History of the Choir is still at #2 of all time. I have no idea why. There can't be that many students of choirs. Of interest of late is Gender Complementarity. Since our culture no longer believes in that, I guess that might be of interest to some.

I also find it odd to find my source of audience. Oh, well, of course, the primary source is no surprise. That would be the United States. But coming in at #2 is Russia, and that is over twice the #3, Ukraine. Seriously? The former Soviet Union is my second best source of readers? Very strange. It's actually kind of cool.

Readership is down of late. I don't take it personally. Part of it, I suppose, is that I don't allow the singularly most controversial voice to comment anymore. His mere presence artificially inflated the numbers. But more to the point, I think, is the fact that I've said most of it before and, anyway, people lose interest after awhile. It's the nature of the human being.

But what about the year? Well, we've seen a "gun violence epidemic" which is defined as "the news media showing every possible gun violence they can find, at least when it fits their paradigm". (Statistically, gun violence in America has been dropping since its peak in the mid-1990's, but let's not bother with statistics, right? We know what is true; the media tells us so.) We have a refugee crisis. It's a crisis because on one hand several very bad groups are making a mess of things and on the other hand some of those very bad groups may be hiding among the refugees waiting to infiltrate. What's a body to do? We have demonstrated our national insanity this year by both eliminating marriage as a viable entity in favor of something that is not marriage (not even those who favor the redefinition of marriage to include people of the same gender deny that this is a redefinition) and then embracing as "heroic" the absolute lunacy of "gender confusion" (simple science will tell you what gender these people are). We have the whole "black lives matter" thing going on where, although it is awful that some police officers act in a racist manner, it has become a sham because the only black lives that matter to this movement are the ones they choose. None of them, for instance, are campaigning against the vast numbers of black children murdered in the womb -- far more than any other race. I don't see any marches attempting to stem the black-on-black murders that predominate murders in the black community. Those lives don't matter. Just the ones that do. Oh, and there's the whole exploration of Mars and Pluto going on which, on one hand, sounds really important and, on the other, seems really ludicrous. I mean, do we really need to know if there was water on Mars when we can't figure out how to stop ISIS or figure out what to do about those refugees, for instance? To me, Pluto pales in comparison.

So as 2015 slips off the last page of the calendar and we turn over to a new year, I find, once again, the absolute need to trust in a Sovereign God. Because, frankly, I'm pretty sure Obama, Putin, Hillary, or Trump will be unlikely to produce answers to the real problems we face. But God does. Starting with the Gospel. I should tell someone about that.

6 comments:

Bob said...

i sure hope that you don't go home before i do. this world would be a very lonely place with out your fellowship. keep the light burning. we need more brothers like you. with the world spinning out of control it's comforting to know there are still voices of reason. thank you Jesus for brother Stan.

Anonymous said...

At the Thanksgiving table Mom said to us, in connection with presidential candidate Ben Carson, "I am pleased when I hear a black person say he is thankful he was born in the US."

I nodded in agreement. I didn't say it, but I was thinking, "It would also be pleasing if black Americans spent more time protesting black-on-black crime, and as long as I am going there, black-on-white crime too."

Stan said...

Bob, I sure hope I go home before you do. But, hey, that's just my secret fantasy.

Anonymous, I hear what you're saying. It begs the question, "Do white lives matter?" But in today's world, lives don't matter, so I suppose it's a moot point.

David said...

You may be rehashing old points, but that's the nature of theology. How many times have we heard a pastor talk about John 3:16 or any of Romans. The truth needs to be repeated because we are a hard hearted people. We so quickly forget the have shown to us in Christ. We need these constant reminders because our memories are so poor. And you can't help that your topics continue to be relevant since people keep committing the same sins over and over. Keep up the Lord's work.

Alec said...

As a new reader this past year, glad to have found your blog, Stan. As Bob said, in these days especially, we need voices of reason.

May you be happy healthy and well in 2016 and beyond,
Alec

Stan said...

Thanks for the encouragement. I trust the Lord will bless you in the year to come.