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!
According to ChristianColleges.com (link removed due to odd request by linked site), and since they include this blog, how could I argue? Well, besides including me, there are a number of others on the list that are on my blogroll, and several other sites that I use regularly in study. If I have time, I’ll…
I heard an outstanding sermon yesterday at Gonzalez United Methodist Church. I really enjoy the opportunity to report positive things from churches that I visit. This one is only about five minutes from my home. The key quote that I wrote down in my bulletin was this: The heart of any church is seen in…
I started teaching a new Sunday School class today, or I should say it’s new to me. In our discussion one of the class members discussed who he understood God to be, and then commented that he couldn’t understand such a God requiring worship. His concept of God was rich and deep, so by this…
[Since I have readers from a variety of viewpoints, let me note that the following is written from within the Christian tradition and to those in that tradition. It’s OK to read, of course, but it’s unlikely to be of great interest to non-Christians.] Mark at Pseudo-Polymath has started a discussion on health care and…
James McGrath links to a PDF by Tim S. Paananen demonstrating some problems with forgery detection via literary parallels. I’ve kept largely silent on the issue of the authenticity of The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, because I don’t read Coptic and I’m simply not well enough acquainted with the various methodologies that would be required…
There is very little that offends me more than the idea of manipulating people into Christian events or trying to convert them by force.
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.)