Robert McKay: Blog

For two weeks running I've been unable to add anything to High Flight, which is in fact ready to finish. First I forgot to save the DOC files as HTML. Then today they turned out to somehow have wound up as (apparently) European HTML files. It's baffling, and irritating.

I hope to have the concluding chapters ready to go by next week, but after the past two attempts I'm not going to make any promises.

Way back in the 90s, when just about everyone in cyberspace got there via BBS, I was part of the RIME Writers Conference. And during that time I created a humorous character named Rockford Files (the name comes from the show, but Rock is nothing like the show). The stories I wrote featuring Rockford are very broad humor, and over the past week or so I remembered him, because I've been reading Patrick McManus' humor. McManus reminds me of Twain (I highly recommend both), but some of the bizarre things that he soberly reports made me think of Rock.

So today I've u/led the only two Rockford Files stories I still have, both of them post-RIME (indeed, I wrote both since moving to Albuquerque in 1997). They are "The Annual Meeting of the Good Ol' Boys Society" and "Rockford Enters the 20th Century." I like 'em both, and if y'all do too I may wind up writing more.

Shoot, I may wind up writing more anyway. :)

Today I began posting a new story, High Flight. The synopsis I've put with it is as good as anything I could put here, so I won't repeat myself. I do want to mention, though, that as I wrote the story I realized that a lot of terminology that to me is normal, because I was in the Air Force and have maintained an interest in that service, is foreign to civilians. I had a choice - I could insert bulky explanations that didn't actually have to do with the story, I could write a glossary...or I could use footnotes. I decided on the last alternative, because that's what I prefer when I'm reading something that has a lot of terms that I don't know (or it's what I would prefer, but I've never found a novel that did it). Whether the notes will come through on the site I don't know. If they don't, let me know (and I'll try to remember to check something during the week), and I'll rush together a glossary. :)

Though Fine Stories isn't a Christian fiction site, there do seem to be a fair number of professing Christians here. At least I've received favorable comments on the explicitly Christian nature of my stories, which has to mean something. :)

I thought I'd try to briefly tell y'all where I stand. I became a Christian in January of 1983, which means that next month I'll have been a Christian for 30 years. And after those 30 years, which I've spent studying and thinking on the Bible, as well as listening to sermons and lessons, talking with other Christians, and reading theology, I can sum up my position using three sets of five statements.

1. The five fundamentals of the Christian faith: i. The inspiration, and consequently the authority, and the freedom from error, of the Bible; ii. the literal nature of what the Bible says happened, including the creation account in Genesis and Jesus' miracles; iii. the virgin birth of Jesus; iv. Jesus' resurrection from the dead; and v. the substitutionary atonement of Jesus.

2. The five solas of the Reformation: i. Sola scripture - the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith and practice; ii. Solus Christus - Christ alone as the object of faith; iii. Sola gratia - salvation by grace alone; which iv. Sola fide - comes through faith alone; and v. Soli Deo gloria - all to the glory of God alone.

3. The five points of Calvinism, using the TULIP acronym: T - the total inability of human beings to be or do anything which can move God to save them; U - the unconditional election by God of some to salvation; the limited atonement of Jesus, meaning not that it has limited power, but that its effects extend only to the elect; the irresistible grace by which the Holy Spirit calls all the elect so that they willingly come to Christ, without exception; and P - the perseverance of the saints in grace, so that all whom the Father chose, the Son redeemed, and the Spirit calls will finally enter the presence of God.

I don't ask that all Christians accept these, though I would say that the first set of propositions are essential to Biblical Christianity, and without them the Christian faith is absent. I would also stand for the second set of propositions as equally essential to the Biblical faith. The last set I firmly believe to be Biblical, and wish that all Christians recognized that fact, but it's possible to be a genuine Christian without being a Calvinist (I was for a number of years). Nor do I require that everyone be a Christian - though I, to paraphrase Paul, wish that everyone were as I am, except for my faults.

All this is for y'all's information only, and you're free to read my stuff - or not - as you please. I wouldn't stop people who disagree with me from reading even if I could, and I can't. :)

As it turns out, the site I mention below only offered a free trial, and if I could afford to pay for a site I wouldn't have been looking for a free site in the first place. Therefore it's gone. I'm trying to find some way to make the Notes On the Bible easily available, but thus far I've had no luck.

As I mentioned previously, I've been working on a project for some time now which I call Notes On the Bible - a "pseudo-commentary" on the Scriptures. I've got that portion which is currently available up and running now, and you can look at it by going to

www.goffscalifornia.simplesite.com

I expect to put Isaiah up next week, and I'm already working on John...which is going to take a while. :)