"What Would You Rather Have; A Religion Or A Relationship?"

I received an email earlier this week that I wanted to address but couldn’t because of my work schedule being ramped up to get ready for a couple of weeks out of town. A friend of mine has written me that she has been visiting a very traditional congregation that uses the historic liturgy and sings the time tested hymnody sung by conservative congregations across denominational lines to supplement her Sunday morning worship at a congregation that has departed from, by all outward appearances, looking like a historic Lutheran church that your grandparents would recognize and be pleased with.

Let’s look at two of the more bizarre practices before I ask my questions:

The pastor has rewrote the ecumenical creeds for the congregation to
confess.

The people get to stand up at a point in the worship service and say
like the good folks at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church: “The bible I hold is God's word from cover to cover. It makes me wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. It is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking,and training me how to live. I need to read listen and learn from God's word every day. This is most certainly true.”

If I had to endure either of these situations this I’d be looking for a way to supplement my Sunday worship just like my friend has choosen to do. I’ve wrote several posts detailing why I can’t return a home church because the pastor not only rewrote the creeds to the point I wasn’t even sure he was talking about a confession of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but he rewrote the Lord’s Prayer in such a way that even the Dali Lama could agreed with the text. Nope, ain’t gonna go back there…

So, since it’s become public knowledge that my friend is supplementing her Sunday morning worship with visits to a more traditional worship setting she has been under a good deal of pressure to stop visiting the more traditional congregation and “looking deeper into liturgy”. She writes:

“Pastor doesn’t' really approve of what we are doing and has already challenged us with questions like "what would you rather have; a religion or a relationship."”

What? Religion or a relationship? Is that what a liturgical, traditional congregation is, just a religion? Really?

Now, I promised some folks that since I’m a bit busy I’d give my readers the opportunity to address the question; “what would you rather have; a religion or a relationship?” I said I’d put this post up a few days ago but I wanted to get my friends permission to include actual quotes from her email.

So… for the discussion please address the dichotomy of religion versus relationships in the context of visiting or being a member of a traditional, liturgical congregation (and is that a false dichotomy?) and what does Scripture say concerning religion versus relationship when speaking of the faithful gathering to worship the crucified and risen Lord.

Discuss. What say you?

The Mormons Are Right!

In my last post I posted a comment from Mike in which he took issue with my statement that Mormons are not Christian. Mike stated that any group who claims to be and believes themselves to be Christian should be considered as such. I of course respectfully disagree.

Heaven will at the last day be filled with a whole group of folks that Lutherans disagree with. There will be Methodists, Baptists, and maybe even an Episcopalian or two if they haven’t followed for what pass for leadership in that nearly apostate church body. Heck, there might even be nondenominational or two or three if they hadn’t bought what passes for vapid preaching that has members looking to fulfilling their “purpose” by looking to works instead of unmerited grace not unlike the Roman church they all love to criticize even though the two merit based theological systems mirror each other perfectly.

Lutherans, boy howdy, are Lutherans ever in for a surprise at the eschaton or the last day when they bump into people who for some odd reason never liked singing Gerhardt hymns during Lent. Oh the horror! Heaven will not as we would want it and thank God for that as our imaginations, wants, and desires are as sinful and corrupt as they can be.

One thing is certain for all of Christendom concerning heaven; there won’t be a single Mormon at the party. Think I’m being judgmental? Just ask a Mormon if there will be a single Trinitarian believing, ecumenical creed confessing, and historic hymn singing soul in their corner of the afterlife. If they have been properly taught at the ward, stake, and temple then they have no choice but to say that they will be the only ones rewarded properly for what they believe teach and confess. And on this point they are more correct than they know.

As Mike should know, being a former Mormon himself, that Mormons teach that those outside of the Mormon faith believe in a “mythical Christ” as is clearly taught in Mormon Doctrine, 269. In the book Mormonism 101 (one of the finest resources on the largest of the made in America religions) the authors site former president Gordon Hinkley as responding to those who claimed that Latter-day Saints do not believe in the traditional Christ as saying “No, we don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak.”

Want more?

The Mormons teach that the conception of Jesus was in a natural manner as every other man. In other words, God the father conceived His son by lying with Mary. Mary didn’t have sexual relations with a mortal man but rather was impregnated by the God the Father the same way any human is conceived. Christians teach that Christ was not created in such a manner but was begotten of the Father by the Holy Spirit.

The Mormon’s teach that Jesus had a brother whereas Christians teach that Jesus has no brother.

The Mormon’s teach that Jesus reached perfection after His resurrection whereas Christians teach the Jesus was always God and was always perfect.

The Jesus of the Mormon’s faith is a very different Jesus than the historical Jesus confessed by the church catholic. That’s why I’m with the Mormons when I say that I agree with them one hundred percent; their Jesus is not our Jesus.

Hmm, who knew it be so easy to come to an agreement with he sons of Kolob?

And Today’s Angry Email Is From…

I get all sorts of angry email from folks taking me to task for everything from my insistence that hymnody solidly confess the faith and not sound like a love song to Jesus to my making crazy statements like we shouldn’t even try to separate the mission from the message so as to be more seeker sensitive to unchurched peoples.

When I get angry emails or comments I always try to be as nice as possible with folks and presume that some of the anger is from people who haven’t read POTF before and that maybe some of that anger is just confusion from walking into the middle of a much larger debate. I think I do a pretty fair job at engaging people who are critical of what I write in a respectful way.

I certainly don’t delete comments because I disagree with people. I can count on one hand the four people I’ve had to delete comments from. Each time the eighth commandment was involved and I just don’t tolerate character assassination (even if the charge is true) here at POTF. I’ve always allowed people to disagree with me either in the comments of a post or by an email address which has been public for as long as this blog has been up.

A bit ago I received the following in the inbox:

Hi Im Mike. As I sit here watching BSG and reading your rant I had a thought. Being an ex mormon and not the biggest supporter of much anything Christian Im surprised that I take a bit of offense to this rant. The Mormons are Christian. Any religion that believes in Christ is. And just as hypocritical as the rest of you. I know youll hate this but im going to suggest anyway. Listen to We~re From America by Marilyn Manson. Forget your judgements, as that is Gods job NOT YOURS. Just listen to what the man is saying. Then reflect on the country and world that corruption, the moral majority, and all forms of religion has built for us to live in. The word of God isnt the problem. The word in the hands of man is. I welcome your cmmnt at __________@yahoo.com

You know what I like about this comment? The author was man enough to sign his name! I don’t get that a lot from people that disagree with me. So, I sent Mike a short note which started out this way:

Hi Mike,

Thank you for leaving your recent comment at Putting Out The Fire. While I strongly disagree with you premise that anyone who believes in Jesus are Christian, I do applaud you for your willingness to engage me in a conversation. There are a goodly number of individuals who disagree with me who leave anonymous comments that make declarative statements and either fail to back up their argument with facts (verifiable or otherwise) or that are little more than hate filled diatribes.

I went on to ask Mike if he wouldn’t mind engaging me in a conversation and was hoping that he could provide insight as a former member of the Mormon church. I stated that the subject of the post would really center on who exactly is Christian, how can know who is Christian, and are there means to state that there are people who claim to be Christian but might not be.

Sadly, Mike never responded back. And that’s a darned shame.

The Bible As History, No Modernity Or Post Modern Goofiness In This Class

I started teaching a class this past Sunday on whether the Old Testament can be viewed as an account of a historical nature or if, as many modern and postmodern would have it, we should look at the Biblical narrative and accounts as myths, fables, or morality tales similar to parables in that they are only meant to teach us how to play nice and love one another but have no grounding within genuine history. Guess which side I’m taking?

It’s remarkable how much Jesus talked about events recorded in the Old Testament as if the events really, really occurred. Imagine that… He talks of the flood recorded the Genesis account in Matt. 24:36-39 as if it is a real event. He also speaks of Sodom and Gomorra as if they were real cities destroyed for their wickedness in Matt. 11:23,24 and Jonah as a real person swallowed by a real fish in Matt. 12:39-41.

In the texts we are looking at in our study it is clear that at no time is Jesus using the kind of language He uses when He teaches by parables, such as “the kingdom of heaven is like…” or ”the kingdom of heaven can be compared to…”, when referring to events recorded in the Books of Moses and the prophets! Jesus speaks to his hearers and to us of real events occurring within a recorded history.

Now it could be that I’m just cherry picking verses out of context except that the Gospel writers are very careful to tell us when Jesus is using parables to ‘splain things. In addition, Jesus always explains his parables to the disciples even if not right away (another case for is meaning is at the last supper, meaning, yes, He really did mean that the bread and the wine are His Body and Blood and not some allegorical representation supposed by my evangelical friends!)

What surprised me most about how the class started off (This if the first week of the study. I suspect I’ll spend three or four weeks on going over Jesus’ understanding of Scripture before moving on to a look at the evidence of the historicity of the New Testament.) was how these high school students were able state in an unsolicited manner and with a high degree of certainty that the Bible can and should be looked at as a historical document. I really assumed that their secular education would have beaten any notion of the historicity of Scripture completely out of their systems by now. I see so much influence of modernity and postmodern thinking that sometimes I take for granted that the youth might actually be on the right track and capable of critical thinking.

I was even pleasantly surprised when one of my students even recommended a book to me that his grandfather had given to him: Josh McDowell’s book “Evidence Demands A Verdict” for making a case that Scripture is historical in it's very nature. As the kids say: w00t!

There’s no doubt that it’s gonna be fun five or six weeks for everyone in the class.

Homework: “Image Composition”

Finally, here’s my completed homework project “Image Composition” given to me by Dan over at Necessary Roughness explaining how I composed/manufactured a picture of Tom Monson declaring that he’s not a cylon. The first portion of my homework assignment can be found here.

Hope ya’ll enjoy it in spite of the poor sound quality!

Something that I forgot to include is that the text in the crawler along the bottom of the fake screenshot is a shout out to a commenter, Saxoniea, who requested that I place President Tom Monson in the raised seat of the Imperious Leader of the old Battlestar Galactica series. I couldn’t do that because I couldn’t find a picture with a high enough resolution to match up with the pictures I had of Monson and a fuzzy pixilated picture wasn’t what I was going for. So, I put the shout out into the crawl and let everyone know that “judge” Frank couldn’t find any evidence of a high quality picture so the idea was shot down

The fake screenshot in the video can be found in it's original post here along with the accompanying fake press release.

Wanted: Jesus To Dance For Sweet Sixteen, Really...

From the there’s no way in all of Hades even I could ever come up with something this bizarre comes this gem from Craig’s List:

I need a Jesus Christ for Sweet Sixteen (Midtown)

My daughters sweet sixteen is in 5 weeks from friday, she is a huge film buff. Her favorite movie of all time is Passion of the Christ and I want to surprise her with someone dressed as Christ to dance with her after she does her sixteen candles. We are holding the party at a well known club in New York City. Please get back to me ASAP with 4-5 sentences on why this is for you and a picture of you dressed as Jesus Christ

Yep, the posting is real… a parent wants someone dressed up as Jesus to dance with their daughter at her sixteenth birthday party.

The Favorite Niece Teaches Her Uncle

My favorite niece, Valerie, finished up the high school’s kid's Sunday school class on the Book of Jonah yesterday.

Boy howdy she did a great job in wrapping up the book with the contrast of Jonah’s temper tantrum outside of Nineveh and Yahweh’s patience, mercy, and grace with his rebellious and sinful children. The students, while a little slow to wake up, did a great job of participating with thoughtful answers that would make any Board of Education superintendent or parent proud!

At the beginning of the class, playing the part of the troublemaker, I asked what exactly were Valerie’s credentials and what gave her the right to teach. Taking her uncles tomfoolery in stride she told everyone that she is a deaconess, a highly trained professional church worker, in the LCMS.

All my favorite niece needs now is a call to a congregation (if anyone knows of a parish looking for a confessional deaconess? Give me a shout if you do) Until she does get a call, I’m gonna recommend that she replace that clown that normally teaches the high school class on Sunday morning because this girl rocks!

And just so ya’ll know; I’m not just saying that because she is my favorite niece but rather because it was real treat to hear a class taught by someone who is so solidly confessional. It’s a rare treat these days to see a class taught to youth that does not pander to the lowest commen denominator but instead seeks to elevate catachetical instruction by engaging the students on a level that parents, at the very least, demand from them in their secular high school even if such is not expected on Sunday morning.

Great job Valerie!

Time Out Episode 50

Dan over at Necessary Roughness has the newest Time Out; Time Out, Episode 50 posted.

The Scripture reading for this episode is Luke 24:13-52 and the hymn is “Spread the Reign of God the Lord” found on page 830 in the Lutheran Service Book.

After the episode which is normally podcast on Pirate Christian Radio, there is another segment featuring a reading from The Popular Commentary of the Bible by Paul E. Kretzmann, Ph. D., D. D. Anyone who is not familiar with Dr. Kretzmann is in for a real treat. I have Dr. Kretzmann’s commentary in my library and consider it an invaluable resource for my both my Sunday school class preparation and my devotional life.

Be sure to stop by, say howdy, and thank Dan for doing such a great job on Time Out, Episode 50!

Previous Time Out episodes:

Time Our Episode 49
Time Our Episode 48

Permeable

Permeable
Pronunciation: \ˈpər-mē-ə-bəl\
Function: adjective
Date: 15th century
:Capable of being permeated or passed through

Do We Really Need To Change Maps?

The Lutheran Witness article that was referenced in the last post started out this way:

Imagine trying to drive in Chicago with a street map of San Francisco. You probably can’t. While both cities are edged by water and have lots of tall buildings, they are nothing alike. Though they share names for several streets, trying to drive in the one with the map of the other would prove frustrating. No matter how hard you tried, you simply wouldn’t get anywhere. Confused and exasperated, you’d finally conclude: It’s time to change maps!

As God’s missionary people, we also need to change maps in order to navigate in this present day. Changes in our society and culture, especially regarding the Church, have come fast and furiously. It’s as if we went to bed one night only to wake up the next morning in a vastly different world. Once vibrant and growing churches question whether they will remain open for another year. Many pastors and people feel guilty for not reaching their communities with the Gospel, while well-intentioned mission sermons often leave them discouraged, even defensive. And in their defensiveness, they begin to reason that faithfulness has only to do with preserving the true faith, whether or not that faith is proclaimed to the nations.

Do we really need to change maps to reach the unchurched? Is there any command in the Scriptures to change maps to reach people with the Gospel? I searched on my computer (I use Libronix when I don’t have my TLSB in front of me) and took a look over at Biblegateway.com and I can’t find any reference, in either the Old or New Testement, where we are told to change maps to reach out to the culture.

I find it somewhat amusing that the author has set himself up something of a false dichotomy that asks us to drive in San Francisco with a map of Chicago and in Chicago with a map of San Francisco. What if there is a third option and it involves getting the map for Chicago if you’re in Chicago and picking up a map for San Francisco when in San Francisco.

As a church we know where the heck we are and we have clear maps handed down in Scripture to follow. We have a map laid down in the book of Acts of how Christ’s church was grown from the start. In Acts we have testimonies of eyewitnesses and of people who participated in delivering the Gospel to the whole world. Are we so arrogant that we think we know how to preach and teach better than the apostles that our Lord called? Do we think that the Church’s counter cultural nature is any different now? I don’t think so.

In the Pauline epistles we are given a map for not only what should be taught and proclaimed but how and in what context the faithful should be instructed. Instead of telling his readers to switch maps, Saint Paul explains exactly what we should be bringing to the a corrupt and sinful culture in the 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 :

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures

Did St. Paul tell the church in Corinth that they need new maps or rather did he remind them of the Gospel that he already preached? Isn’t Saint Paul faithfully carrying out Christ’s command to make diciples by baptizing them and “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.”? Our Lord does not say to the disiples that they need to go out, get new maps, become permeable to speak with the culture, and don’t get hung up on preserving the true faith by faithfulness.

The the marketing gurus we seem to want to listen to, (and we pay dearly for their advice) tell us that we need to transform our congregations if we are to reach anyone with the Gospel. We are told to play secular songs instead of sacred hymns. We are accused of only wanting a “maintenance ministry” if we think church is the place for the sheep who need to hear both Law and Gospel and refuse to turn Sunday morning into something that looks like a rotory club meeting. We are told that is better to save souls than be Lutheran. We are told preserving the true faith by faithfulness to our confession of faith is passé, uninspiring and only to be left to the theological dodos of the reformation identified as the “museum keepers.” Such thinking has turned evangelism into an idol.

These slick Madison Avenue marketing gurus and the author of the Lutheran Witness article suggest that we just need new ideas for reaching the unchurched. In other words both say that we need new maps. As Scripture does not call or suggest that we become permeable or more like the culture in order to make disciples of all nations; the new map that these folks offer only leads us away from the Gospel and towards abyss of uncatechized non-belief.

Do we really want to try to navigate the church’s missionfield with a map of the culture? How would such a contrivance benefit the church if this is not what we are called to do? It won’t, plain and simple.

No, I’ll trust the map that we have been given and leave the map that wishes to look like the culture it chases on the spinner rack of heterodoxy.

POTF Blog Of The Week: Should Our Doctrine be Permeable?

This week’s blog of the week has to go to Jim Pierce’s post over at one of my favorite daily reads Confessional Bytes and his post titled Should Our Doctrine be Permeable?. Jim is looking at an article in the Lutheran Witness that discusses how we as the “churched”might become permeable to reach the “unchurched.”

The idea that the church must look more like the culture has long been a bug in my bonnet so to speak. I’ve heard more than one church bureaucrat say in front of many a people that we need to stop worrying about being Lutherans and try to worry about saving souls as if that is something WE do.

Jim takes the author to task for his taking verses from the Bible out of their clear and intended context which is a tactic frequently used by individuals and marketing gurus to justify replacing church doctrine and practice with cultural sensibilities to attract people who are not so much attracted to church.

Should doctrine be permeable? No. It's sad that we even have to ask that question

Great post Jim!

The Festival Of The Blessing Of The Blessed Internet Ready Mobile Devices

The Times is reporting that in an effort to be all things to all people Canon David Parrott blessed laptops and cell phones placed on the altar of St Lawrence Jewry Church of London on Monday.

I looked in my Treasury of Daily Prayer this morning and I can’t find the Festival of the Blessing of the Blessed Internet Ready Mobile Devices anywhere.

What’s up with that? Have we conceded the tech savvy seeker demographic to the emergent church or the Unitarians. Don't we love the children of the iPod and netbook enough to provide the rubrics and rites necessary to reach out to them in a manner that is relevant? Are we so inward looking that we don’t include the Festival of the Blessing of the Blessed Internet Ready Mobile Devices in our devotional materials like TDP?

Time Out Episode 47

Dan over at Necessary Roughness has the newest Time Out; Time Out, Episode 47 posted.

The Scripture reading for this episode is the 1 Peter 1 and the hymn is “The People That in Darkness Sat” found on page 412 in the Lutheran Service Book.

Be sure to stop by, say howdy, and thank Dan for doing such a great job on Time Out, Episode 47 !

Previous Time Out episodes:

Time Our Episode 46
Time Our Episode 45

Uncle Frank's Favorite Gift Of The Year Award 2009

It’s time once again to award the annual and highly, highly coveted Uncle Frank's Favorite Gift Of The Year Award for Christmas presents.

The prestigious award for the bestest present goes to, wait for it….. my favorite niece Valerie for her schӧn icon of the Last Supper. As she did last year, Valerie once exploited her uncle’s love of fine religious art and added to growing collection in his home office.

As I stated last year when she gave me an icon of St. John the baptizer: “By taking advantage of her uncle’s fondness of art that would give any smiling, purpose driven, evangelical convulsions as it wasn’t produced after 1966 and isn’t saccharine sweet and cute, she was clearly the favorite from the beginning”.

At the end of the day, Valerie is always the favorite for Uncle Frank's Favorite Gift Of The Year Award the because she is my favoritest niece. Thank you Valerie for the wonderful icon!

For previous years winners go here and here and here and here.

Homework

I figure that before the year ends that I had better wrap up a few things that have been pushed to the back burner due to either vocation, family, or other drama in the real world apart from my time on the interweb or, simply put; sheer laziness on my part to post what I promised to post.

Earlier this year Dan over at Necessary Roughness assigned me a short list of items to write about that he thought might be interesting; Battlestar Galactica, comic books, living in the Haut south, embroidery, metrology, and image composition.

The only topic I’m gonna pass on is Battlestar Galactica as I’ve written at length a good deal on why this sci-fi show which pays tribute to Mormon myths is a favorite of mine. (This was especially true during the early republican primaries where Mitt Romney, a son of Kobol, was running to be president of the fifty colonies.) Click here for my many, many tongue in cheek BSG/Mormon posts.

So, let’s go down Dan’s list…

Comic books. I started collecting comic books way back in ’75. The overseers of the Cigarville Orphanage (Yes, I’m from a town that used to be called Cigarville and yes I was one of the infamous Cigarville 7 back in ‘82. I’m not certain who even remembers the Cigarville 7 if anyone at all and at the end of the day, I think that’s probably best. Google it if you care, I don’t.) would always give us a quarter to buy a comic book off the old spinner racks at the local drug store back when comics were sold in drug stores and supermarkets. Nowadays comic books are sold through small local distributors or bigger online companies like Mile High Comics (I’ve been a satisfied customer of theirs for over twenty years now) and typically run over three dollars for a single title.

I’ve long said that comic books are something akin to the old Greek myths, which told tales of titan’s struggles with both the gods and evil men. Whether it is demigod delivered to earth in a rocket ship from a doomed planet or a teenager whose inaction causes the death of a beloved uncle and his seeking redemption through wise cracking heroics, it is these epic tales that first attracted me to an art form which married words and panel art. And if you look close enough, there’s always a good bit of theology thrown in as heroes must deal with the struggle with evil. The Daredevil title is particularly good at fleshing out theological themes.

I’ve been collecting comic books since ’75 and currently possess the largest private collection in my state. It’s some kind of disease I’m sure…

Living in the Haut South. I moved to the Haut South over twenty years ago and just fell in love with the culture. My first taste of the south was Texas when I was transferred to Fort Hood from Mainz, Germany. Talk about a culture shock! Growing up in the northeast I wasn’t quite prepared for the more laid back way of doin’things but quickly adjusted. I knew I was gonna be ok when I went to my local Walmart on a lunch break and bought a handgun; something that was nearly impossible up in Cigarville country. As soon as I learned that barbeque was a noun as well as a verb I was officially welcomed by the locals as one of their own, Yep, I found myself a home in Texas.

Wanting to remain in the aviation avionics field I took a job a little bit north of Texas and settled down with my missus. We’ve been living in the Haut South ever since even though I did eventually leave the aviation field (more on that later). The locals are not as welcoming to those from the northeast. The reason for this that Yankees have a nasty habit of leaving their ancestral homes disgusted with their culture, transplanting to my little area, and promptly running for city and town council to show these bunch of hicks how to do things the right way (just like they do in Cigarville). This creates a good bit of animosity with those who think their culture is cultured enough and don’t need no damn Yankee to tell ‘em otherwise. The haut goes both ways ‘round here and is palatable.

Embroidery. I don’t know jack about embroidery. I designed the logo for POTF with the help of my quality manager (this was before I knew how to “photoshop” images) and sent the created image off to be formated into a file that could be read by one of them there fancy embroidery gizmos. The average fee to do this is about a hundred bucks from a reputable embroidery shop and it’s worth every penny if it’s done right.

Metrology. The reason Dan asked me to write about metrology is that he knew that I was a metrologist. I know what you’re thinking and no, I’m not one of those guys on tv that yap about the weather. The weather guys are meteorologists. I’m a metrologist which quite a bit different.

Metrology is defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures as "the science of measurement, embracing both experimental and theoretical determinations at any level of uncertainty in any field of science and technology." Sounds simple doesn’t it? My vocation has me dealing mostly with laboratory instruments that measure mass down to the microgram. Tiny little things those micrograms. Some of the instruments that I service and calibrate have the capability to read the mass of air particles or fingerprints left on an object. The work I do is mostly preventative although lately I am finding myself doing more and more repairs as customer’s budgets for capital expenditure necessitate units are fixed rather than replaced.

Metrology, while precise, isn’t as an exact science as one might imagine. There are, especially in the FDA regulated pharmaceutical industry, complex and therefore expensive calculations to determine the various levels of uncertainty of measurement affecting all levels within the manufacturing process to remain compliant with regulatory bodies. Compliance is expensive and a companies have to weigh (no pun intended) the value of uncertainities of measurement of the laboratory instruments, ingrediants, and even packaging with the effect on the quality of their product. It would be nice to have every laboratory balance weigh perfectly but even if that were possible, the cost of maintaining such a standard would drive the price up of medications to the point where we could no longer afford even an asprin much less those expensive medications we all need to remain healthy.

I’ve been in the metrology field for almost fifteen years now and almost every day is a hoot. I’ve got good customers and I work for a great family owned operation in the Haut South, what more could I ask for?

Anybody have questions?

The next post will be on the final item on Dan’s list; image composition. I’m working on something a little different as far as format is concerned for this one…