Quote of the Day – June 23
From Dave Black Online, Rhino Evangelism:
What a tragedy that some Christians, while having a commendable zeal for evangelism, also display the sweet approachability of a rhinoceros!
From Dave Black Online, Rhino Evangelism:
What a tragedy that some Christians, while having a commendable zeal for evangelism, also display the sweet approachability of a rhinoceros!
… “In God We Trust” on the back. See This is NOT a Counterfeit Bill at Yahoo News. I’ve always found the idea of putting “In God We Trust” on our currency to be mildly blasphemous. In our money is precisely where we trust God the least. And that’s in our personal finances. When we…
I have previously expressed my concerns about Bible classes in public schools, even as electives. These objections come from multiple directions. Because I support separation of church and state, I prefer to keep such classes out, even though in principle they have been held to be constitutional. As a Christian, I believe there is a…
Easter services are much better attended than Good Friday services. I suspect this is inherent in human nature. We prefer the solution to the hardship getting there. We prefer the happy ending to the suffering that led up to it. It’s not surprising that we do. Who doesn’t prefer those good times? Who doesn’t want…
… a God without wrath does not plan to do much liberating. Indeed, that God’s anger is kindled when harm is done to the least among us not only gives us hope that earthly injustices don’t have the last word but also insight into God’s compassionate nature. Deanna Thompson, Deuteronomy (Belief: a Theological Cimmentary on…
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006. 538 pp. ISBN: 0-8028-3162-1. I would remind my readers again that I am writing some notes on my experience of reading this book and not a formal review. I requested this book via interlibrary loan because it was recommended by a…
Church and Sunday School are two different activities. Both can be valuable in one’s Christian life, but they do not substitute for one another. Sunday School has generally been in decline over the last few years, but I think there’s something even more important. Sunday School has too often been a light review of scriptures,…
Actually I’d disagree. Of the Christian evangelists I’ve met, the only one whose company I didn’t particularly enjoy was one who had clearly given up on me as a lost cause.
I was in a park and a couple of really nice evangelists came over and started chatting. The conversation started to get beyond the limits of their knowledge, particularly on evolution/creationism, so they called over their apologist-in-chief.
This guy was clearly not interested in discussion, having (correctly?) pegged me as a lost cause, so was only debating to retain face with the junior evangelists. He clearly wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. The conversation degenerated into a bizarre speed-chess version of the God debate, with points and counter-points bouncing backwards and forwards at a rate of about one every ten seconds.
It ended when the apologist-in-chief pulled the Just Pray About It exit manoeuvre and scarpered. I can only hope his associates found the experience as weird and bemusing as I did.
(The punchline was that later that day I actually did try praying, just in case. The only thing I got was a splitting headache. Thanks, God.)