Your Opinion, Please

Mike and I had a very weird day. We intended to go to the range, but Mike was late, and he came up with a plan: visit a bunch of top-rated Miami pizzerias and see how their pizza compared to the recipes he and I came up with. I got back a couple of hours ago. We hit EIGHT pizzerias. Mike actually took notes. I'll blog the whole thing and add photos eventually.

Three places had pizza I would consider good enough to pay for. Steve's (North Miami Beach), Casola's (Coconut Grove), and...oops, two places. We intended to try Frankie's, but a problem came up, so we skipped it. I've been there in the past, however, and while it was perfectly good, it wasn't worth leaving home for. Not when you have your own good recipe.

Steve's used to be pretty weak. Mike and I ate there a few times when we were kids. But it got a lot better at some point in the past.

I avoided The Big Cheese and Miami's Best Pizza. The Big Cheese makes a good, solid pizza, but it's not fantastic. Miami's Best is the most overrated pizzeria (first, by the guy who named it) in the galaxy. The sauce is excellent, but the crust is just good. The cheese is downright odd. It has Muenster in it, I think. Not bad, but not right. And they do a really sloppy job, because the kitchen is always full of college kids playing grabass. They messed up my last five pies. On top of that, I've had some odd treatment in there. For one thing, they refuse to take credit cards, which is just plain obnoxious. For another, there is a weird little dude there who refuses to put change in your hand. He'll look you in the eye and slap it on the counter, like he's trying to teach you a lesson. I am teaching him a lesson, in return. By eating elsewhere.

Fun day. That's the condensed version. Nothing normal ever happens around Mike.

Right now I'm reading a book online. Remember the other day, when I mentioned Corrie ten Boom, the lady who hid Jews from the Nazis and ended up in a concentration camp? Her book, The Hiding Place, meant a lot to me when I was younger, and I ordered myself a new copy.

Some people responded very positively to that, so I'll talk about a couple of related items. First, you can read the Bible online. Easily, painlessly, and with a great search function. Here's a link.

Second, I found another familiar old book on the web. I wondered if any of my readers had any thoughts about it. My mother had a beat-up old copy I used to borrow. It's called Angels on Assignment, and it was written by the late Roland Buck.

Ordinarily I'm extremely skeptical of anyone who says he has had a supernatural experience. Especially if it made money for him. And as my attitude toward Mormonism shows, I have no patience with charlatans who make up "helpful" addenda to the Bible. But Buck's book seems different from run-of-the-mill books in this genre.

He was a pastor, and he claimed he was visited by angels. And they told him encouraging things about God and the future. They helped him minister to a number of people in special need. They even clarified a few things about theology.

I have looked around the web, and it seems like a lot of Christians think this book is just dandy. I guess that, like me, they were hard-pressed to see anything heretical in it. Unlike Mormonism, which denies the one truth which is the whole point of Christianity, Buck's book seems consistent with the Bible, although he does appear to verge into prosperity-preaching. What I want to know is, have any of you read the book, and what do you think of it?

You can read the whole thing online, at this link. Free.

There are a lot of other characters out there with books about supernatural experiences, and I am not nearly as willing to accept them. For example, there are more than a few people who make a fine living claiming they went to hell or heaven or both...and came back. I would be more inclined to believe them if they profited less and their stories were consistent. Hell can't be hot AND cold, can it? Dark AND full of bright flames? Come on. And I'm automatically suspicious of anyone who claims torment in hell lasts forever. The Jews don't believe that, and I think they're right. What is the point in burning someone for a trillion, trillion, trillion years, raised to the trillion-trillionth power? I think people who accept that idea unquestioningly probably aren't good at math. "Infinity" is REALLY big. You may think you'd torture someone like Hitler for eternity. But you wouldn't. My guess has always been that when the Bible uses terms like "everlasting" to describe hell, it refers to its existence, not the time an individual spends there.

There used to be a guy who appeared on TBN a lot, talking about his visits to heaven and hell. His last name was Eby. He was very entertaining. But he "prophesied" that he would remain alive until Jesus returned. And as of this writing, he has been dead for years. He was either crazy or, far more likely, a complete fraud. Would God take a prophet to heaven and hell, and send him back, and expect us to believe what he said, and then let him get caught saying something utterly wrong? No.

I know I seem gullible even considering the possibility that Roland Buck told the truth. But I know for a fact that angels exist, so I have to accept the possibility that people have had prolonged encounters with them, apart from the encounters mentioned in the Bible.

There are some unflattering things on the web about Charles and Frances Hunter, the faith-healing evangelists who brought Buck's book to light. Maybe they're tremendous liars. Maybe Buck was a crook. That's the most likely explanation, after all. But it's such a nice book! A person can't help wishing it were true.