An Open Letter to Lance Ketchum

NickImage

Dear Brother Ketchum,

Over the past couple of months my attention has been directed to several of your writings, some of which mention me. While I do not make a practice of responding to unsolicited criticisms, two factors have influenced me to write to you. The first is the fact that we have labored together in the same corner of the Lord’s vineyard and have come to know each other well enough to speak frankly. The second is that, while I know you to be an honorable man who would never willingly misrepresent a brother, your recent writings have contained a sufficient number of misunderstandings that I have heard people question your credibility. So I am writing to you simply to set the record straight, I hope in a way that is charitable.

One of your concerns is that you believe you have been ridiculed, particularly within the Minnesota Baptist Association. You state, “I have talked to a few men in the leadership of the Minnesota Baptist Association of churches regarding these issues. My comments were received with a smirk of derision and ridicule.” Since the only board member of the Minnesota Baptist Association whom you mention by name is me, people are likely to infer that I have ridiculed you, or perhaps that I have encouraged others to ridicule your pronouncements.

Actually, I don’t recall having heard you ridiculed, either in public or private, by any board member or pastor of the Minnesota Baptist Association. Personally, I respect you too much to subject you to mockery. I have witnessed God’s grace in your life. I have watched you face severe trials with equanimity, treat opponents tactfully, and persevere both in faith and in ministry. While we disagree about some issues, I believe that you are a man of honor and a man of God. If I heard someone attack your character, I would want to be one of your defenders.

As you know, however, defending a man’s character is easier than defending his every pronouncement. For example, you recently complained that someone ridiculed your article on the Hegelian dialectic. Yet your description of Hegelian dialectic contains little that would be recognized by anyone who had perused a serious book about Hegel, let alone read Hegel himself. Consequently, I find that you have left me with no answer for those people who wish to ridicule it.

The same may be said of your remarks about John MacArthur. You state, “John MacArthur is a hyper-Calvinist, believes in Lordship salvation, Presbyterian polity, uses CCM and Christian-rock in his church ministries, and is undoubtedly a New Evangelical.” Some of your allegations are certainly true: for example, John MacArthur does believe in Lordship salvation. Some are beyond my knowledge: I really do not know whether MacArthur uses CCM or “Christian-rock” in his church ministries, though I know of many fundamentalists who do. (The only rock concert to which I’ve ever taken my wife—inadvertently—was a chapel service in one of the King-James-friendly Bible colleges). Some of your observations are simply not accurate. MacArthur’s polity is not so much Presbyterian as it is Plymouth Brethren. No historic definition of hyper-Calvinism can imaginably be applied to MacArthur. Only the most pejorative standards would classify him as a New Evangelical. When people ridicule you for making such accusations, it becomes very difficult to defend you.

As I recently glanced through your writings, I discovered that I myself had been similarly misinterpreted. For example, you stated that I have “regularly criticized people for criticizing Reform [sic] Theology, especially Reformed Soteriology. Under [Bauder’s] paradigm, anyone believing that Reformed Soteriology is unscriptural, and is [sic] willing to say that publicly, is outside of his acceptable Fundamentalism.” Well, there is a grain of truth here. I have on a couple of occasions said that we do not need to fight about Calvinism. But the fact is that I myself believe that some tenets of Reformed thought are unscriptural, and I am willing to say so publicly. For example, I do not believe in Limited Atonement as it is traditionally defined. I have actually written about some of the areas in which I differ with Reformed theology, and I see no particular problem in allowing others to express their disagreements as well. The question is not whether we may disagree, but how. The kind of disagreement that would label John MacArthur as a hyper-Calvinist is clearly not helpful. It is the kind of thing that invites ridicule. Though I disapprove of aspects of MacArthur’s soteriology, disagreement does not deliver me from the obligation to represent him fairly.

The same can be said of the following sentence:

When professed fundamentalists such as Dr. Kevin Bauder, Dr. Douglas McLachlan, Dr. Timothy Jordan, and Dr. Dave Doran begin to defend men like Al Mohler, John Piper, Ligon Duncan, John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Mark Dever, C.J. Maheney [sic], and Rick Holland (to name a few), it becomes very apparent that there has been a considerable change in direction regarding the practice of militant separation.

You seem to think that it is unacceptable to defend men when they are falsely accused. Well, I am willing to defend these men from slanders against their character or false statements of their views, in the same way that I am willing to defend you. Nevertheless, at a great many points I have challenged their views: in some cases over miraculous gifts, in other cases over church polity, in yet others over contemporary methodologies. I have attempted to persuade them that fellowship and separation involve more than simple adherence to the gospel (some of them already understand this to varying degrees). I think that I can defend their character while disagreeing with some of their theology, just as I do with you.

If you scold a child for everything, then she will pay no attention when you scold her for the thing that matters. Something like this has happened with the incessant fundamentalist scolding of conservative evangelicals. If you want to open the way for competent fundamentalists to articulate our differences with conservative evangelicals, your best approach is to expose and reprove fundamentalist periergazomenous* whose only spiritual gift appears to be censoriousness.

“But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you…though we are speaking this way” (Heb. 6:9, NASB). You are an honorable man, and that is why I have felt comfortable offering both clarification and exhortation. I trust that you take my words in the charitable spirit in which they are intended.

With affection,

Kevin

Notes

*—see 2 Thessalonians 3:11.

Untitled
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Thy Name, O Christ, as incense streaming forth
Sweetens our names before God’s Holy Face;
Luring us from the south and from the north
Unto the sacred place.

In Thee God’s promise is Amen and Yea.
What are Thou to us? Prize of every lot,
Shepherd and Door, our Life and Truth and Way:—
Nay, Lord, what art Thou not?

Discussion

[GregH]

A year or so ago, I got a Facebook request out of the blue from Lance Ketchum. I did not know him or even know who he was but I accepted it. Not long afterward, he posted some statement about ultra-conservative and indefensible statement music and I responded (very politely) in the ensuing debate to point out a problem in his thinking.

Interestingly, he fired back and promptly unfriended me. That did not bother me so much because I did not know him in the first place but I did respond once more on the thread and mention how rapidly I had gone from “friend” to “unfriend.” His response? He unfriended me because he was practicing Facebook separation on me.

So, you can call Lance’s position a separatist or a factionalist if you want but in my mind, I have always considered him a pioneer “Facebook separatist.”

;)

This is so sad. I’m sorry you had to experience such silliness. It is examples such as this that are the reason I rarely identify myself with the word “fundamentalist” anymore. This type of “separation” trivializes a very grave issue and ultimately makes a mockery of true, Christian community.

Mark Mincy

[Mark Mincy]

[GregH]

A year or so ago, I got a Facebook request out of the blue from Lance Ketchum. I did not know him or even know who he was but I accepted it. Not long afterward, he posted some statement about ultra-conservative and indefensible statement music and I responded (very politely) in the ensuing debate to point out a problem in his thinking.

Interestingly, he fired back and promptly unfriended me. That did not bother me so much because I did not know him in the first place but I did respond once more on the thread and mention how rapidly I had gone from “friend” to “unfriend.” His response? He unfriended me because he was practicing Facebook separation on me.

So, you can call Lance’s position a separatist or a factionalist if you want but in my mind, I have always considered him a pioneer “Facebook separatist.”

;)

This is so sad. I’m sorry you had to experience such silliness. It is examples such as this that are the reason I rarely identify myself with the word “fundamentalist” anymore. This type of “separation” trivializes a very grave issue and ultimately makes a mockery of true, Christian community.

Thanks, but no need to be sorry. I found it a bit humorous. :)

Don,

Your questions are fair, if perhaps only partial. Let me do my best to respond to them.

You have a series of questions about the Lansdale meeting. Let me separate them in order to provide answers.

(1) Do I think the meeting had much of an effect upon Dever? Well, I think that it certainly heightened his awareness of some issues and made him more accountable for his handling of them. You need to understand, however, that the minds of thoughtful people (and Dever is a thoughtful person) are rarely changed as the result of a single conversation, article, book, or argument. Mature thinkers always have a whole list of tensions and unanswered questions that they are trying to work through, any one of which has the potential radically to realign major segments of their understanding. The way to change minds is to sustain a conversation that will, over time, deal with objections, exceptions, qualifications, nuances, and contrary evidence. Mature people do not just abandon their position because a good argument comes along. They take the time to weigh it, dissect it, investigate its foundations, and measure its implications. Do I think that Dever and other conservative evangelicals doing these things? Absolutely.

(2) Did my view of Dever change as a result of the meeting? Well, yes. I was extremely impressed with his grasp of New Testament polity has understood historically by Baptists. One of the problems that we face in Baptist Fundamentalism is the high proportion of ministers who have been trained either in interdenominational or in imperialist institutions (or in both at the same time), and who consequently lack a real grasp of New Testament ecclesiology and church order. I grew up in a Fundamentalist environment that prized the Baptist distinctives and that emphasized some of the same things that Dever is now saying. Listening to him was, in a certain sense, like a trip down memory lane. I thought I could hear echoes of Robert T. Ketcham, Paul R. Jackson, and Joseph M. Stowell, Jr. Of course, Dever probably never read any of those men, but he and they have read the same things. And these are things that churches within Baptist Fundamentalism desperately need to remember. [The one exception is his making plural eldership virtually a New Testament requirement for every church.]

(3) How hopeful am I that Dever and other conservative evangelicals will come to a better understanding of separation? About as hopeful as I am that the FBF will. There was a day when I would have said it could never happen in either direction, but I am now watching it happen in both. On the FBF side, I am tremendously encouraged by the voices of some of the present leadership, including some of the things that John Vaughn has said privately. When I look at leaders like Mike Harding, Rick Cross, Aaron Young, Mark Minnick, Ken Endean, or Stephen Jones, I am extremely encouraged. These guys get it. While I would never suggest that they endorse my every decision, I see myself as right where they are. They and men like them represent the voice of reason within Fundamentalism today.

Having said that, I am also encouraged by some of the things that I have seen on the conservative evangelical side. When James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll took an essentially neo-evangelical position in the Great Elephant Room Fiasco, Dever did the right thing and separated. Phil Johnson, Carl Trueman, and others went ever further, spanking MacDonald and Driscoll publicly at a time when their conduct demanded it. While I am not where those men are on some issues, it is not an accident that MacDonald excoriated them as “discernmentalists.” For a while, they were looking downright Fundamentalistic. I am not prepared to embrace them at every level, but I am also not prepared to allow them to be treated like enemies of the faith.

I’ve not yet dealt with all your questions, but this is probably enough for one post. I’ll try to get to the rest before the day is out.

Please keep in mind as you read that I am giving you off-the-cuff answers here, and that I am speaking in very broad generalizations. If you press me, I’ll want to qualify them in all sorts of ways.

Kevin

I find this article and comment thread both informative and encouraging.

We keep coming back to the same unanswered question, namely, “What is a Fundamentalist?”

It seems clear that Lance Ketchum excludes from his definition of Fundamentalist those who hold to historic Baptist Calvinism, as ably noted above by Mike Harding, among others. Is Ketchum aware that Calvinist Baptists have been a large segment of historic Fundamentalism from its beginning? Does he care?

It seems to me that until we can have a commonly accepted definition of Fundamentalism, we will continue shouting at and past each other. Fundamentalism has a noble history that needs to be understood, appreciated, and continued. Many present day Fundamentalists seem determined to shoot themselves in the foot.

G. N. Barkman

Hi Kevin

Thanks very much for taking the time to answer. I agree that it takes time for men to change their opinions. I am less optimistic than you appear to be regarding individuals like Dever. Part of the motivation behind my questions is that after the Lansdale conference, I thought you were saying some things that sounded like you were less optimistic coming out than you were going in. I wondered if I was reading too much into what you were saying, and perhaps I was, given your answers here.

In any case, I look forward to the rest as you have time.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Don,

I was not trying to trap anybody. I think the first question was very relevant, but I will drop it. Perhaps this question is better - “If Mark Dever (and the only reason I mention him is because you did in your first response given) were to come to you and ask what he would need to do to be accepted as a fundamentalist, how would you respond?” You made it very clear in your initial post that men like Dever hold to an un-biblical or at least less-biblical position than you and others do. That is what I am responding to. So I am simply asking how you would respond to that question if it was posed to you?

Andrew Henderson

Don,

Let me resume where I left.

(4) Having asked about the Lansdale meeting, you enquire more broadly whether I think my interactions with conservative evangelicals are having a positive effect upon them. Let me answer this question in three ways. First, I think that you are overrating the number and quality of my interactions with conservative evangelicals. They are busy men, and so am I. Furthermore, we are busy with different things. Unless something occurs that brings us together, we simply do not see one another or talk to each other. The truth is that I have never initiated any of those conversations (except for one or two where I was going to be offering critiques, and allowed them to see the critique and challenge it before I published it). Every formal conversation has been initiated by someone else, and, virtually without exception, has involved some explanation or defense of the Fundamentalist position. I think that most of what conservative evangelicals know about me, they get from reading what I have published. Truthfully, I have not sought out interaction with them, but I refuse to run from it either. It is an honor to have the opportunity to defend biblical Fundamentalism before those who either reject it or who do not understand it.

Second, yes, I do think that these interactions (such as they are) have a fairly positive influence—more in some cases than in others. The problem is that it’s not always clear where the influences are coming from, so I’m reluctant to claim credit for good decisions to which conservative evangelicals have come. At minimum, however, I hope to reinforce those decisions and to encourage further good ones. Just one example: years ago, Al Mohler was one of the signatories of the Manhattan Declaration, which resulted in his extending Christian recognition to Roman Catholics. Mine was only one of a host of voices that questioned the theological integrity of this decision. I highly doubt that my small contributions had much (or even anything) to do with Mohler’s change of mind about the Manhattan declaration, but he himself later acknowledged that it had “crossed the line into an unwarranted and unbiblical recognition of the Roman Catholic Church” (Spectrum, 85). Someone influenced him positively, and I’m happy to cheer the result.

[Nota Bene: there is a biblical term for this kind of change of mind. That term is metanoia, and it is ordinarily translated by the English word repentance. In other words, Al Mohler has indeed biblically repented of his signing of the Manhattan Declaration. If you should ever read someone who says that he has not, then mark that person down as either uninformed or mendacious. If mendacious, then that person is not only a liar, but also a character assassin (or, if we take Jesus’ word for it, a murderer). You should keep that assessment in mind when you read whatever else he says. Such dishonorable persons warrant biblical separation. No good-faith conversation with them is possible.]

Third, a conversation is not always for the benefit of the person with whom it is carried on. Sometimes it is carried on for the benefit of bystanders—of those who overhear it. Most of the reason that I get involved in these conversations is because they provide a platform to publicly articulate the case for biblical Fundamentalism (and, incidentally, against unbiblical versions that claim to be Fundamentalism). On my view, one of the worst things that has happened to Fundamentalism during the last half century is that we have only talked to ourselves, never allowing our ideas to be tested in the public square. That failure has left some very bad ideas unchallenged, while it has permitted the best ideas to seem weaker than they really are. I believe that this failure is one of the significant reasons that young men leave Fundamentalism for arenas in which they see their elders standing up and defending their principles against real opponents.

It’s one thing for someone to attack John MacArthur (e.g.) in the pages of a book that one has had printed by a vanity press and sells to his small circle of friends. It’s another thing to have to stand on the platform in front of MacArthur, explain your ideas, and show why they are better than his. People are most legitimately convinced when they see our ideas tested and vindicated.

By the way, I see that you’ve already replied to the first part of my answer. Let me finish answering your original questions, and then if time allows, I’ll circle back and try to engage your further observations.

Kevin

[GregH]

A year or so ago, I got a Facebook request out of the blue from Lance Ketchum. I did not know him or even know who he was but I accepted it. Not long afterward, he posted some statement about ultra-conservative and indefensible statement music and I responded (very politely) in the ensuing debate to point out a problem in his thinking.

Interestingly, he fired back and promptly unfriended me. That did not bother me so much because I did not know him in the first place but I did respond once more on the thread and mention how rapidly I had gone from “friend” to “unfriend.” His response? He unfriended me because he was practicing Facebook separation on me.

So, you can call Lance’s position a separatist or a factionalist if you want but in my mind, I have always considered him a pioneer “Facebook separatist.”

;)

He broke fellowship, but he didn’t approach you with one or two other friends first. There might be a market here for a Fundamentalist facebook app here. My concern would be have I properly unfriended people to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th degree? What if Lance was a friend of someone who was a friend of yours? Would it have been sufficient for Lance to just unfriend you? Man, this whole internet thing, makes for a difficult life for fundamentalists. Maybe we should step away from this technology?

http://youtu.be/1SmdPC9v5gk

I wanted to thank Don and Kevin for their conversations in this post. I believe it is helping us all to better understand both their positions and their concerns. I actually have the same feeling about the conversations between Bauder and Dever. Not only are Don and Kevin sharpening each others iron in these posts, but they are sharpening the rest of us as well. Let us remember that if we all agreed on everything here, there would be no need to even have a conversation- we could just blog and have the rest click the like button. I must admit I have learned a lot from the comments and responses here on sharper iron. Let me not just thank Don and Kevin but all the participants on this site.

I attended the ATC Conference in Lansdale in 2011 when Dever spoke. I had been greatly influenced by Dever in many things ecclesiastical through his 9 Marks and other books, particularly in the areas of church membership, discipline, and eldership. We had even added a lay elder at Heather Hills in the month prior to the conference due to the instruction I had received from Dever and others on training and raising up leadership within the church. Since Calvary Seminary is my alma mater, I was delighted that they were hosting Dever. I saw it as a good broadening of fellowship for fundamentalism, something I didn’t frankly anticipate would ever happen.

The other men on the platform (Jordan, Harbin, Bauder, and Doran) were extremely charitable to Dever and vice versa in their public conversations. However, they did challenge him publicly on various topics, like “why stay in the SBC,” “why not pay all elders per 1 Cor. 9,” etc. I was pleasantly surprised at the public challenge b/c for a young fundy like me, it delivered some clarity on the distinctiveness between fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism which to me had grown somewhat muddy and limited to secondary separation and the like.

My esteem of Bauder and the others grew immensely at this conference, not because they had simply embraced a brother “outside the camp” but because they loved him and the gospel enough to challenge him, both privately and publicly, in a way that should set a model for all of us.

Brian McCrorie Indianapolis, IN www.bowingdown.com

I echo Brian’s thoughts in post #43. I also attended the ATC conference in 2011 and came away thinking: “This is how these discussions should be! Amicable, informed, and yet straightforward discussion on issues that we don’t see eye to eye on.”

I also came away from that conference thinking that the fundamentalism that men like Dr. Bauder and Dr. Doran represent is absolutely a concept worth saving. I thank them for their continued efforts in this area.

Mark Mincy

[dgszweda]

[GregH]

A year or so ago, I got a Facebook request out of the blue from Lance Ketchum. I did not know him or even know who he was but I accepted it. Not long afterward, he posted some statement about ultra-conservative and indefensible statement music and I responded (very politely) in the ensuing debate to point out a problem in his thinking.

Interestingly, he fired back and promptly unfriended me. That did not bother me so much because I did not know him in the first place but I did respond once more on the thread and mention how rapidly I had gone from “friend” to “unfriend.” His response? He unfriended me because he was practicing Facebook separation on me.

So, you can call Lance’s position a separatist or a factionalist if you want but in my mind, I have always considered him a pioneer “Facebook separatist.”

;)

He broke fellowship, but he didn’t approach you with one or two other friends first. There might be a market here for a Fundamentalist facebook app here. My concern would be have I properly unfriended people to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th degree? What if Lance was a friend of someone who was a friend of yours? Would it have been sufficient for Lance to just unfriend you? Man, this whole internet thing, makes for a difficult life for fundamentalists. Maybe we should step away from this technology?

http://youtu.be/1SmdPC9v5gk

On Linkedin they label connections as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree. You have to make certain that if you disagree with someone that is labled 2nd degree, you must cut off the 1st degree that connects you to them. I think 3rd degree is ok.

Don,

Now, for your next question:

(5) Do I think that my interaction with conservative evangelicals has had any negative consequences for younger Fundamentalists who are watching me? This is another question that does not permit a straightforward yes or no answer. It’s like asking whether the invention of the Internet has had any negative consequences for Christians. The answer can only be, Yes, of course it has. You could list the negatives as well as I can. Yet here we are, both of us employing the Internet in our conversation with each other. Evidently, we both have concluded that the benefits of the Internet (rightly used) outweigh its liabilities (wrongly used). I frame the answer in these terms because this kind of evaluation requires at least two judgments.

The first is the simple judgment of costs versus benefits. This is actually the easier judgment. All we have to do is to decide whether we get more out of the technology than it takes away from us. This is pure accounting.

The second judgment, however, has to do with intent, use, and consequences. I am referring here to what is sometimes called the “principle of double effect.” Sometimes when we do good things, bad things also result. Examples abound. An engineer designs a highway upon which some people are killed, but the highway may (mutatis mutandis) be a good thing in itself. A hostage is killed by sniper fire that is aimed at a terrorist, but the death of the terrorist may (mutatis mutandis) have been the best thing under the circumstances. A young woman takes her own life out of despair because the object of her affections has proposed to another woman, yet his proposal may (mutatis mutandis) have been a good thing in itself.

Our most virtuous acts may sometimes produce evil effects that, while real and perhaps even foreseeable, are not the intention of the act. The engineer was not trying to cause people to crash. The sniper was not aiming for the hostage. The young man was not hoping to drive a young woman to despair. In all three cases, the unintended effects might even have been predictable—but that does not mean that the action should never have been taken. By the same token, we might be able to foresee bad uses to which depraved people will put our virtuous words and deeds, but we may be right to speak and do them anyway.

To return to your question, a certain number of young men who grew up in Fundamentalism have become enamored with conservative evangelical leaders. At one level, that is understandable, for these leaders do a great deal of good. At another level, however, it is possible for their admiration to become thoughtless in a way that ignores or downplays real and important issues. If a young man is simply looking for an excuse to abandon the Fundamentalist structures in which he was reared, then I can foresee that he will use my words and deeds as part of his excuse to do so. When he does, however, he will have to ignore the limitations and parameters upon which I insist. In other words, he will have appropriated parts of my position while inconsistently ignoring other parts.

I concede that all of this is foreseeable. It is, however, beside the point. We are obligated to give an answer, not to merely ourselves, but to every man who asks a reason concerning the hope that is within us. This principle, I think, applies to anyone who inquires concerning any aspect of the system of faith. So, to put it bluntly, I am happy to go anywhere, any time to defend biblical Christianity (including Fundamentalism) for anyone. This is no less true in the case of brothers who are very like us than it is in the case of unbelievers who hate us.

At the end of the day, for every young man who uses me as his excuse to leave Fundamentalism, ten more find encouragement to stay and to try to build a Fundamentalism worth saving. Still, the question is not what Fundamentalism as a movement gets out of it. The question is whether it is the right thing to try to do. If so, then unintended secondary effects cannot make it wrong. The fact that sinful people can twist the truth should never stop us from proclaiming it.

More needs to be said along the lines of why young men are leaving Fundamentalism. It is not because conservative evangelicals are recruiting them—they are not. It is not because people like Doran or me are encouraging them to leave—we are not. If people like Dave or me thought that some version of evangelicalism was better, we could easily go there. No, I think that young men are leaving more because of what they perceive in Fundamentalism itself, and their perceptions are only enhanced by the fulminations of the periergouzomenōn. They find it impossible to stay within what they think is Fundamentalism, and they don’t know of any alternative other than some broader version of evangelicalism. Perhaps that is a topic to which we can return when I have finished answering your questions.

I am aware that I another question or so to answer, but I probably will not be able to get to it until tomorrow. Sorry for the interruption in conversation.

Kevin

Hi Kevin

Taking it slow is fine with me. Gives time to think it over and consider what you are saying. I’ll hold any further questions or evaluations until you’ve finished.

Others are of course free to comment along the way, but I am really not trying to debate anyone, just thinking about this whole issue yet again. I agree that we need to talk more about it, and I hope this can be a profitable discussion for everyone.

In the meantime, I’ve spent most of the day doing chores around the house, got to use three different power tools - that makes it a good day any day of the week.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

[Don Johnson]

In the meantime, I’ve spent most of the day doing chores around the house, got to use three different power tools - that makes it a good day any day of the week.

That, of course, is only true if the intended consequences or their use outweigh the evil, unintended consequences. In my case, that is rarely true, hence my power tools are a necessary evil, to be used only when absolutely necessary, with most of their time spent safely in the closet, and me very happy with that state!Any day in which I have to use 3 power tools is as likely to be an unhappy day for the house as it is a good day.

Dave Barnhart