Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • About Not Blogging

    I’ve been even more irregular than usual in my blogging over the last couple of months. My excuse is that my company, Energion Publications, has been going through a transition which has kept me incredibly busy.

    The transition is a good one. We were in a position to improve some of our equipment and tools and to add a couple of people as contractors to do some additional work. We now have a new copy editor, and we confidently expect great improvement in the editorial process as well as in final quality assurance. In addition, someone is working on Kindle conversions and will be moving to epub conversions for Nook, Google Editions, and the iBookstore. I had been trying to catch up with those, but with the production schedule, I was unable to do so. We saw the first release of the new Kindle editions yesterday, Rite of Passage for the Home and Church.

    New tools include this new laptop I’m using to post this, as well as an upgraded desktop. Both items were very essential, as their predecessors were getting very old. In terms of tools, while we’re still using open source software, such as OpenOffice, GIMP, and Scribus for some things, I now have InDesign and Photoshop available to speed the process in many cases. I’ll be posting something about working with these tools over on my computer services blog. Don’t get the idea that I dislike any of the open source options. For what they do, they are good, but anyone who has had to lay out entire books (with footnotes!) will know the benefits of InDesign, I suspect. We’ve had contractors who have these items. Now I have them on my desktop as well.

    My hope is that having both the tools and the people will give me time to work more on my own writing and also to blog more regularly. Speaking of which, I feel a couple of blog posts coming on.

     

  • Book Review: She’s Got Issues by Nicole Unice

    Note: You may be asking why a guy is reviewing this book. The reason is that I’m not. This post is a guest post from my wife Jody, who decided to review this book after seeing on the list from Tyndale Blog Network. I am crossposting it her from her Jody Along the Path blog as the Tyndale folk expect it to appear on my blog.

    Maybe we know we often create our own messes, so we assume we should clean them up. – Nicole Unice from She’s Got Issues (ISBN#: 1414365101)

    Wife, mother, ministry leader, and counselor, Nicole Unice brings her giftings, knowledge, and life experiences into a book that will peel you like an onion and reveal the source of your issues. It did mine.

    I frankly did not think I needed Mrs. Unice’s help. I am very aware of my issues but I also thought they were my “messes” and mine to clean up. And I have tried to do so for many years. It hasn’t been working very well for me so to continue with my present plan would seem like a definition in insanity.

    Whether through simple assessment questions or group discussion or her astute observations, the author took this “control freak” and spoke straight truth to me, much like I suspect Jesus did when He met various people along the path, looked straight into their hearts and answered, not the question they asked, but the question they needed to have answered.

    I laughed as I identified with many of those whose stories are related in this book which only made me dig in to learn what I could do to make a change in my life and come out in a different place than where I have been landing.

    Great book and I highly recommend it for all my fellow control-freaks!

  • In Which I Discover that I Am Not a Thinking Person

    I just made this discovery this morning.

    I mentioned Jerry Coyne’s site in an earlier post Five Sites I read Because I Disagree, and I still read it. I get some good information about evolutionary science and great cat pictures and videos. But Jerry Coyne is not particularly friendly to believers.

    Now I want to be clear. I’m not one to be terribly upset by vigorously expressed viewpoints, so I’m not offended by the new atheists. I’m more concerned with Christians who use excessive rhetoric. After all, we’re supposed to be on the same team. So the new atheists are proud and open about their atheism and their objections to religion, and I have no objection.

    So today I read Coyne’s latest on Bart Ehrman’s new book in which he presents evidence that Jesus existed. Now one has to be careful in stating Ehrman’s thesis. Ehrman doesn’t mean that the divine savior of the world of Christian doctrine existed. He means that there was a man Jesus who existed in history and about which certain things can be said with reasonable historical validity. (I haven’t yet read the book, but I think this much is clear from the reviews. Further, it’s an unsurprising thesis.)

    Coyne is concerned that people will misunderstand Ehrman, and that Christian believers will take comfort from the book. Coyne says, “I’m hoping he isn’t being deliberately ambiguous to cater to believers.” Probably not. Ehrman hasn’t really been known to cater to believers, though his book jackets seem to be designed to annoy them. Compared to the relatively tame content, the jackets manage to stand out as shocking. (I previously blogged through Misquoting Jesus [link to the summary and conclusion with links to the parts].)

    Then his penultimate sentence:

    But what is important, and all those Christians who buy the book should know this, is that both Ehrman and atheists see not a scintilla of evidence that Jesus was the son of God or divine in any way, was born of a virgin or resurrected, or is the way to salvation.

    Really? I would have thought that the important issue was whether Ehrman had done his historical work with any accuracy. Not having read the book yet, I can’t comment in detail, but I suspect he has. I can certainly understand his annoyance with the mythicists who use very poor historical methodology. I see the annoyance that Ehrman seems to be expressing as the the annoyance of a scholar at the use of unscholarly methods and approaches. Coyne would doubtless be quite annoyed were the methods of mythicists used in science. (See James McGrath on this issue–for example, Creationists, Mythicists, and Schroedinger’s Scholar Fallacy.)

    But then there’s the last sentence:

    That remains fiction to all thinking people.

    I am, of course, aware that Coyne regards this as fiction. I’m aware that Ehrman does as well. But that wasn’t the point of Ehrman’s book.

    It’s an interesting form of attack. If you think Jesus was divine in any way, then you are not a thinking person. Not You are a person whose thinking is faulty. Not even You are a thinking person who is mistaken on this point. If you disagree, you are just not a thinking person.

    I think Christians should be forthright and open about what they believe. But when I hear a Christian say something like “You have to be stupid to see the universe, and not believe in God,” I will tend to point out that there are definitely very intelligent atheists, those who are able to think clearly on issues about which we agree. Why would one assume they are suddenly stupid because they disagree on one point? My preference would be for one to simply say, “It is not sensible to assume that something came from nothing.” That may simply push the issue back a level, but it is an attack on the idea, and by implication on the person’s thinking in that particular area, but not an attack upon the person.

    But since I confess that I regard Jesus as divine, not to mention savior of the world, something that is not really an historical question as such, I guess I am not a thinking person.

    Oh well!

     

  • Asked to Move in Church?

    I’m one of those people who tend to sit in or near the same place every week. In fact, in one church I attended, when I consciously decided to move, someone jokingly told me that I shouldn’t have moved, because they used to find their pew by seeing where I sat, and then sitting a certain number of rows behind that. When I moved, it upset their system!

    That was a joke. But apparently this sort of thing happens in real life. This is one of those actions in church that is so grossly inhospitable that I have a hard time imagining people doing it, but, it appears they do.

    I suspect we’ll have to give up those pews before we get to heaven …

  • March Biblical Studies Carnival Posted

    … at Zwinglius Redivivus.

  • A New Testament Political Theology

    Dave Black has some very useful comments on political activism, responding to a video by N. T. Wright, which I’ll embed here:

     

    I appreciate this video for several items, but I even more appreciated Dave Black’s comments. I personally am politically active. I always vote. I often advocate for various causes or candidates, and in the past I have even gotten involved in political campaigns, though not recently.

    One of the difficulties I think Christians have is distinguishing one’s own standards from those that should be imposed on others. In my view, the state should not be there to force the public to live according to Christian values or any other separate agenda. I think we always need to distinguish between “I like that” and “there ought to be a law.” It’s not just Christians that have trouble making that distinction.

    But more importantly, in my view, I see our political approaches to problems infecting the church. If we’re law and order people in society we often lose the redemptive idea of Christianity. What is the solution to the drug problem? Is it more drug enforcement, or might it just be more reaching out to those who abuse drugs? It seems to me that as a Christian, my solution to such a problem is contained in the gospel, not in the making of laws. While laws may well be necessary, I shouldn’t let the need for such laws make me despise the violators or forget about the grace of God.

    In any case, Dave’s comments resonated with me today.

    Faith in the Public SquareFor a somewhat different, though not incompatible view on our involvement in politics, I want to quote from the recently released book Faith in the Public Square (Bob Cornwall). Bob is comfortable being called progressive.

    I understand why some of my co-religionists have chosen to stay clear of government entanglements, though I’m not convinced that it’s possible to work for justice or work for the common good without engaging the political system in some way. It is for this reason that I have involved myself in efforts to engage elected officials in conversation and when necessary even pressuring them to do what I believe would be the right thing. Additionally, even as I recognize that political parties are not perfect instruments, I have chosen to support one of the two major parties and its candidates for office during elections. It’s not that I believe God favors one party over the other, but I do believe that one party better fits my own understanding of the common good, an understanding that
    is informed by my faith.

    Even as I align myself with one of America’s two political
    parties and accept the realities of being a citizen of a particular
    nation, I’m also cognizant that I’m called to give allegiance not to the flag or the nation for which it stands, but to God whotranscends national interests. That is, if I faithfully pray the Lord’s Prayer then I must give full and complete allegiance to God and to God’s realm. Whatever I do in the public sphere must be done in the light of that prior commitment.  Remaining faithful to one’s ultimate allegiance, while engaging the public square, is not an easy task. It requires humility and a willingness to recognize that not everyone shares my beliefs or values. My goal in engaging the public square isn’t purely religious; that is, while my goal is not to impose my faith on the populace as a whole, I am committed to being present in the public square, which involves political action. This
    political action is informed by my faith. I may engage it as a private citizen, which allows more partisan engagement, or I may come to the square as part of the faith community, but in this case the engagement should be less partisan or even non-partisan (pp. 4-5).

    I think this is a topic that deserves wider discussion. The consequence of simply letting things ride is that we will follow the path of least resistance, and that path will make the church reflect the culture, in which case, what value remains in the church?

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  • Joel Watts Quoting Edward Vick

    From Inspiration to UnderstandingJoel Watts is quoting from a book I publish, From Inspiration to Understanding. I’d like to get more involved, but for now, check out his quote.

    My company (Energion Publications) will be releasing a new book by Dr. Vick, Creation: The Christian Doctrine, taking the approach of systematic theology. This will be released some time in May.

  • 1st Century Church?

    My wife Jody is again writing about the first century church. She wonders if we want to just visit it for one hour per week.

    We have both previously written on this topic. To be honest, I don’t think that many people are really interested in a church like the first century church. I suspect it would be too demanding of our commitments, time, and resources. But isn’t that what God calls us to?

  • Michael Bird on Studying the Gospels

    Michael Bird has a really excellent post on critical and faithful study of the gospels. I’m not going to extract from it, though my hat tip goes to Darrell Pursiful who extracted an excellent quote.

    I was reminded of a book my company published recently, From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully. I haven’t had time to write the “reflections” post I usually write regarding each book I publish, but some of those reflections would surely reflect the attitudes that Bird expresses.

  • March Abnormally Interesting Biblical Studies Carnival Posted

    … at — you guessed it — Abnormal Interests!