Asides

Copyright Trolls
(2010/8/31)
Laura at Pursuing Holiness notes one and presents a course of action. I think bloggers often move past fair use, but news outlets and going way too far the other way. (0)

New Meaning to Language Police
(2010/8/31)
This story gives new meaning to the idea of language or grammar police. (HT: The Agitator) (0)

Christianity by Force or Manipulation
(2010/8/23)
There is very little that offends me more than the idea of manipulating people into Christian events or trying to convert them by force. (0)

What Makes a Plumber Real
(2010/7/20)
Michele Bachmann says she hopes that the newly formed Tea Party Caucus will provide a voice in congress for “real housewives, real farmers, real businessmen, real plumbers.” (Source.) I’m wondering how “real” farmers, businessmen, and plumbers differ from the rest … (1)

Somebody Needed a Dictionary
(2010/5/6)
… to look up “suffrage.” (0)

Unright Christian Blogs

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Moderate Christian Blogroll Additions

The following have joined the Moderate Christian Blogroll: Living with “God Vision”, if i were a bell, i’d ring, Seeking After, and Adventures in Revland. Learn more about the blogroll here.

NY NOW Groupthink

Ed Brayton has a post on the NY chapter of NOW, which claims that Ted Kennedy betrayed feminists by endorsing Obama. I had this on my list of topics for posts, but Ed already said it better.

Numbers and Context

This is way out of my field, but I want to link to it because it illustrates the way in which numbers can be used deceptively. I still heartily recommend the book How to Lie with Statistics from which the title is derived.

I’m no economist, but I remember a fine discussion in [...]

CT Interviews Barack Obama

He’s a Christian and has been for 20 years. This quote struck me:

I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. [...]

Being a Christian Witness

I wrote some more thoughts for my wife’s devotional list on the same topic as my post Silent Witness. We are works in progress. Imperfection is a fact, but it shouldn’t be an excuse.

Israel and United Methodist Whoredom

I’ve always regarded myself as substantially pro-Israel, and often resolutions by the United Methodist Church on this issue trouble me a bit. (For those who don’t know, I am a member of a United Methodist congregation–quite a fine congregation too!) But apparently some people are troubled a great deal more than “a bit,” and can get quite enraged on the issue. The United Methodist Portal responds to this commentary on WorldNetDaily by Joseph Farah.

Now Joseph Farah gets to what I think is his major point–and if it’s not, it’s my major point about him–when he says:

This is no longer a church; it is an organization of misguided political activism. This is no longer a house of God; it is a mad house. This is no longer part of the bride of Christ; it is a whore to the world. [Emphasis mine]

I have to note here, of course, that I might say similar things about an organization like WorldNetDaily, which seems to have made overreaction a way of life. But I haven’t, and I’m not planning to. They can overreact all they like, and I’ll criticize them article by article as I see fit. I have not yet seen fit to read them out of the body of Christ, but perhaps the problem is that I have “lost [my] moral bearings” and am far too tolerant of arrogant windbags.

Continue reading Israel and United Methodist Whoredom

Silent Witness?

Laura at Pursuing Holiness is concerned with the idea of a “silent witness,” as accomplished by wearing cheesy buttons. No, she’s not talking about the need to shout, but rather the need to be clear and Biblical in the way in which one witnesses. Her particular target is the AFA’s program of Easter [...]

Witherington: What Have They Done with Jesus?

I have two books on my “to be read” shelf that I also intend to blog through. Since I just completed Random Designer, by Dr. Richard Colling, and I have Francis Collins, The Language of God which also deals with evolution, I decided to take Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? next. I’ll get to Collins’ book next.

In addition to giving me a change of subject, its topic is also closer to areas in which I have some expertise. The word “some” should be noted here–I’m not a New Testament scholar. I’m largely a popularizer, and my academic training emphasized Hebrew scriptures. But working in a church, rather than an academic environment, I have been forced to spend a great deal of time on the New Testament just because that’s what most church members want to study.

My procedure for blogging through a book is to read a chapter or block of chapters and then write my reaction on the blog immediately, rather than read the whole book and then write a more comprehensive review. This can result in some need to correct my impressions later, and in the case of Random Designer, that did happen. It is perhaps a slightly post-modern way to read a book, but I don’t think I’m very post-modern, so maybe I do it just for fun.

Continue reading Witherington: What Have They Done with Jesus?

Abuse of Authority or Church Discipline?

Someone on the Compuserve Religion Forum has posted a reference to an article about churches starting to try to discipline their congregations.

I’m not going to try to summarize the article. Suffice it to say that the most extreme example involves a pastor calling the police to arrest a woman for trespassing. Her [...]

New AmazonConnect Blog

I’ve created an AmazonConnect blog. I won’t be creating new posts, but they now allow authors to syndicate posts from elsewhere which then show up on book detail pages on Amazon.com. I created the category “Author Related” for posts that I want to syndicate, and I’m using the category feed. Generally administrative announcements [...]