In the time I played sax with the worship team, it was much as I thought it would be and expressed here in the blog. Perhaps the only thing different was how often I subbed for other instruments we didn’t have – usually strings. We didn’t have a lead electric guitar during that time, so I played a few guitar intros and bridge leads. The band now has an electric guitar and a second keyboard to play synth strings.

As for sax itself, I’ve moved off the alto in favor of soprano and tenor. Due to some health issues, I knocked off sax altogether for a few months last year, though I could still play bass. Played soprano in the Christmas concert in 2009 after a hurried attempt to revive the embouchure. Not sure about 2010’s concert. So in the short term, I don’t know what I’ll be doing with sax on the worship front. My current effort is aimed at developing a set list for a new cover band (secular).

Occasionally, a work arises that brings clarity rather than confusion to our understanding. Such is the case with the opening chapters of Antichrist: Islam’s Awaited Messiah, where author Joel Richardson compares three principle characters of Islamic eschatology – the Mahdi, the returned prophet Isa (Jesus), and the Islamic antichrist Dijjal – with the three principals of Biblical eschatology – the Antichrist, False Prophet, and Messiah Jesus. Though characterized from opposing perspectives, the parallels between these persons is uncanny and immediately recognizable to anyone who has devoted time to reading and understanding Bible prophecy.

The book is divided into three parts, the first being the largest and containing the principle arguments, and subdivides as follows -

Chapters 1-9 lay out the respective comparisons between the Mahdi and Antichrist (or first beast) of Revelation; between the prophet Isa (Jesus returned), who leads Islam in a final battle against the Jews, with the second beast (False Prophet) of Revelation; and between the Dijjal with the returned Jesus. This is the most striking and useful part of the book.

Chapter 10, The Revised Islamic Empire of the Antichrist, identifies the constituent nations of the Antichrist’s empire – essentially a revived Ottoman Empire – and ties the Gog/Magog prophecy of Ezekiel to the Antichrist prophecies of Revelation and Daniel. I have problems with this chapter concerning interpretation of the Ezekiel prophecy, whose parameters make it problematic to fit within the central narratives of Revelation or Daniel. However, it is a very interesting read.

Chapters 11-17 examine the suitability of aspects of Islamic thought and practice as candidates to fulfill Biblical citations concerning Israel’s end-time enemies. I was already familiar with this theme, and the desire to find some resolution to it is what led me to this book.

Chapter 18 summarizes the point-by-point comparisons in Part One.

Part Two contains two chapters. Chapter 19 points out problems with the thesis, and I appreciate that the author offered this. Chapter 20 is a retrospective of how the primary thesis came to be. Together, Parts One and Two form a compelling case for the Antichrist arising as an Islamic figure.

Part Three, entitled How Should We Respond?, contains three chapters recommending personal action through prayer, outreach, and preparation for persecution. This section has a fatalistic tone, and though I have no problem with the specifics, it is clearly premised on an eschatology that rejects a Pre-Tribulation rapture of the church. This is another difficulty I have with the author’s eschatology.

The thesis of this book transforms the perception of Islam from civilization or religion to a vehicle of malevolent spiritual forces at the end of the age. Even if this is true, I personally refuse to harbor an animus against such a large segment of the world’s population. The author is of the same mind, as this work does not appear to be based in ethnic or religious hostility or paranoia. He simply seems serious about interpreting the Bible accurately.

I view the Biblical picture of the end of this age as more complex than what this book presents, particularly in how the Antichrist’s empire will arise. Nevertheless, the principle thesis of the book is well presented. It would be interesting to see a serious and honest attempt at rebuttal, though I suspect there will be none.

I recommend chapters 1-9 for everyone. These with chapters 11-20 would have made an excellent book in itself. Despite my contentions with chapter 10 and Part Three, I still think they are worth reading to spur examination of one’s own eschatology.

• World population will stabilize in 30 years.
• US population will remain stable as immigration compensates for low birth rate.
• Russia will cease to exist in a generation, if its population trend continues.
• Europe is turning Islam.

The latter two are of particular interest for their relation to subsequent books I read. More on that in those reviews.

Now I’ll say up front that I like Mark Steyn’s humor and insight. He’s probably the only journalist I’ll go out of my way to read or hear. One thing he is not, or at least has not been until this book, is a fatalist. That’s what’s disturbing about this book. The happy warrior is here transformed into a gloomy one, his wit not belying an undercurrent of doom reminiscent of the writings of Whitaker Chambers or Russell Kirk from another era.

The theme of the book is how the trends cited above will eventually isolate America as defender of freedom. But of course this was written before the 2008 election, and I suspect that America is about to abdicate that role anyway. Whether her enemies allow her to is another matter.

Neither do I suspect the trends presented in the book, which I don’t dispute, to continue unabated. For instance, Russia’s leaders are certainly aware of their country’s rapid depopulation, and given their increasingly ultranationalist bent, it seems unlikely that they will just quietly sit within Russia’s borders and let their realm devolve into a minor power.

I listened to the unabridged version of the audio book. Disappointingly, Mark Steyn himself does not read the book. The narrator is Brian Emerson, who does a good job, but I missed Steyn’s comedic timing that especially comes across well on radio.

However, the worth of this book to you depends largely on your existing base of knowledge. Nothing against Mark Steyn’s arguments or his style, but I didn’t really learn much from this book. Not that there is a lack of information, but that I was aware of most of it already. And that’s the primary reason I rarely read polemics.

• America Alone, by Mark Steyn
• Antichrist: Islam’s Awaited Messiah, by Joel Richardson
• Epicenter, by Joel C. Rosenberg

Given that this blog is entitled On Second Look, I can evade (quite conveniently) comprehensive summaries of the text, assuming the reader has already seen reviews such as those at amazon.com, and instead focus on offering my appraisal.

Since August I’ve been practicing with the church worship team. They like my sound OK, so it remains for me to get the material down. Most of them are participating in the Pastor’s December 7 concert, but I’m not, so I have to time work on the main stuff until then.

I’ve made an upgrade to the student model alto (Yamaha YAS-23) by replacing the neck with Yamaha’s G1 neck, which is what they put on higher end saxes. Basically, I upgraded the tone of the YAS-23 for $300, without having to cough up the cash for the next-level model. I played a YAS-475 (intermediate model) in the music store, but didn’t notice any tone improvement, though the key action was clearly better.

I am considering getting another Vandoren V16 mouthpiece for the alto, this time an A6S to complement the A7M I currently have. The A7M gave me the tone I wanted, but practicing with electronically amplified instruments, I find the need to cut a bit more, not in volume, but with more character from overtones that I would get from a smaller chamber. I will also try out other makes as I get the opportunity.

There’s more to tell, but why do it all in one post?

I could say my life was messed up and I needed divine help to straighten it out. While I did need to clean up my act, that was not the reason either.

I could say that I have witnessed miracles that undermined all contrary argument and persuaded me beyond doubt that God is. But not until I believed did I ever see a miracle.

You see, I don’t accept God as a proposition, or concept, or personification of a creed or hope. God himself drew me, so I sought him out in turn. I love who he is, and desire his friendship. Therefore, I choose to follow him.

As Jesus said to his disciples, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you…” and “No man can come to me, unless my Father draws him;”.

So it remains for each of us to, as the psalmist put it, “hear his voice and not harden your heart”.

I love the Chronicles of Narnia books, and hope to see the entire series go to screen. Whether all seven get made depends on the success of each movie as it is released. The problem is that in my opinion, Prince Caspian is the weakest of the Narnia stories.

The story of how Caspian X comes to rule Narnia is not so compelling in itself as it is a combination of Narnia-revisited nostalgia and a bridge to the next book – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (which is my favorite of the series) – introducing two new Narnians – Caspian and the chivalrous mouse Reepicheep – who have larger roles in the next story. In the first two-thirds of the book, the four Pevensie children, back from the first story, wander about attempting to discern just why they have been summoned back to Narnia, what happened in the thousand or so Narnian years they have been gone (only one year in their Earth-lives), and where to find Aslan. In the end, the kids and Caspian marshal Narnians to battle against their Telmarine (Spanish pirate) oppressors and Aslan appears to set things aright.

This is not to say Prince Caspian is a bad book – it has its moments. But the movie makers really had their work cut out for them, and my hope was that they’d pull it off and not let the weakest story abort the film series. I think they succeeded. First, the movie has much better pacing than the book, at least until the gratuitous failed castle assault (which is not in the book). Secondly, the film did a nice job of fleshing out the Telmarine characters who are stiffs in the book. Also, the CGI is excellent.

On the negative side, there’s just too much battle and too much killing – and I’m someone who likes war movies. But it’s just out of place here. The book has only a short battle at the end. I can buy that more action is needed in the screen version for box office appeal, but it was over-done and became tiresome toward the end. Secondly, what is perhaps the most vital moral theme in the book – Lucy’s struggle of faith in coming to follow her vision of Aslan, even when her family discourages and hinders her – is truncated in the movie to the point of being non-visible to anyone who hadn’t read the book. I hope this is amended in the director’s cut DVD.

The best character in Prince Caspian (and in Dawn Treader) is Reepicheep the swash-buckling mouse – a classic little guy who talks big. Though always a comic character, Reepicheep backs up his mouse-that-roared style with valor and eloquence, and evokes affection from readers of the two books in which he appears. My second concern going into the movie was whether the film-makers could pull off Reepicheep, who I think was as essential to do right as Yoda was to Star Wars. I think they succeeded, though I wish the scene where Aslan grants Reepicheep a new tail (after his is lost in combat) had been done less comically and more dramatically as in the book (where it is almost a tear-jerker).

Other differences are in detail, but one is mildly poignant to those familiar with the entire series. The movie adds a romantic interest between Caspian and Susan that is not in the book. It seems unnecessary, but the final scene does serve as an affectionate good-bye to Susan, who does not appear again in the series, and in the final story (The Last Battle) is revealed to have undergone a kind of fall-from-grace in allegorical terms.

Despite my criticisms, I like the movie version of Prince Caspian. And here’s hoping the series makes it to the action-packed The Horse And His Boy (5th) and bittersweet The Magician’s Nephew (6th), and that I live long enough to see them all in peace and in freedom.

My favorite gaming board – Consimworld – has recently launched a social network. I’ve registered there, so I’ll post wargaming stuff on that site, although sporadically. Consimworld Expo is coming up soon (week after Memorial Day), so hopefully I’ve have material to post about.

On the music front, I’m undergoing an intense 3-month preparation for a do-or-die audition for the church worship team come August. If successful, I intend to spin amateur musicianship off into its own blog, making this a God-blog only. For God-blogging I have a couple of topics in mind.

I had lunch with a friend last Thursday who said that he couldn’t recall an instance of Buckley influencing him on any issue. Come to think of it, neither can I, other than the first time I ever paid attention to WFB when he debated Ronald Reagan on the Panama Canal and won me over to his position. It remains my only recollection of the former president losing a debate. By the time I started reading National Review in the late 1980s, I was firmly in the conservative camp, and inclined to hold similar views to Buckley’s.

Perhaps Buckley wasn’t widely read, at least by most Americans. But what he did was influence the influencers, including the one who had the most influence on my political thinking – Ronald Reagan.  His writing and television appearances revealed an interesting fellow that I would like to have known, though in a way, I did, through his work at which he was so prolific. And that’s another fascinating aspect of Buckley – for a man who didn’t have to work, he was so highly prolific, reminiscent of Isaac Newton, though even Newton tailed off in the second half of life. Buckley’s book Windfall : The End of the Affair, recounting his last trans-Atlantic sailing excursion, remains one of my favorite reads.

It is sad to see him go, even more so in that, like so many great ones who have passed in the last few years, there has not as yet emerged anyone in the next generation who can replace his value to America and to freedom.

Rest in peace, WFB. In days ahead, we shall meet after all.

Apparently once titled Fact or Fiction, this is a basic trivia game, where players take turns asking a question and the other players guess true or false by selecting a FACT or CRAP card. A right answer gains one chip from the pool, a wrong one loses a chip to the pool. The first player to answer has two chips at stake either way. The game ends when all players but one lose all their chips or when all chips in the pool are taken. The player with the most chips wins. We actually ended our game due to time.

The questions are interesting as a source of humor, but what made the game fun was really the cast of characters we had playing it. That’s where Fact or Crap succeeds – as a social game, the purpose of which is to generate fodder for interaction. Those who expect more competitiveness in a social game are advised to look elsewhere.

We enjoyed the game immensely. My only reservation is about its replay value, which we will put to test in another session soon.