Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Culture11

    I received an e-mail from Joe Carter suggesting that I check out Culture11, of which he’s a managing editor. I’d feel real special, but I know that a bunch of my friends got such invitations as well, so probably Joe was inviting all the bloggers with whom he has contact, which is, after all, a good idea!

    I’m checking out Culture11, and thus far I’d say it looks a bit like Facebook, except that it is built around ideas more than light social interaction. It’s not that Facebook is not useful for exchanging ideas, though things tend to move too fast for me there, or that Culture11 doesn’t appear to have all the possibilities for social interaction, but it appears to be designed to keep the focus on ideas.

    Of course, this is just preliminary. I’ve barely started looking. If it is, in fact, an idea centered site, I’ll probably spend some time there. It will be interesting to see how people use it. The atmosphere cannot always be controlled by the management.

    In any case, I’d suggest checking it out, and if you do, look me up. My profile, such as it is, is here.

    Have fun!

  • It’s Raining Books, Hallelujah!

    I haven’t been blogging much for the last two weeks, as I’ve been pretty busy with other things.

    While I was too busy to get right two them, all four books that I had on interlibrary loan arrived at the same time, one of the unfortunate problems of requesting lists of books. Several of them are pretty big as well. Now I have just under a month for the one I have for the longest period of time.

    Some of these were recommended by readers, particularly Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which was recommended to me by a commenter as a follow-up, hopefully more convincing than What Have They Done with Jesus by Ben Witherington. I owe my readers another post or so on that previous book. Perhaps when I’m done with Bauckham, I’ll compare the two. At the same time, I requested Bauckham’s The Gospel for All Audiences, which looks like interesting reading.

    The same commenter recommended DeSilva’s An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods and Ministry Formation. Besides having some comments on the same topic (gospel eyewitnesses), I feel the urge to read another New Testament introduction. It’s useful to do so every so often–it helps me organize my thoughts.

    Finally, I have Waltke’s An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach, which is also a fairly substantial volume. I wanted to read a clearly evangelical Old Testament theology, and this looks like a good option.

    Considering my other reading, I could have wished that the books would have arrived over a longer period of time, but hopefully I’ll be able to do them justice in the time available. Reading on books that are on my own shelves will have to go on the back burner.

  • A Forest of Signs and Waving People

    I headed out to vote yesterday in the Florida primary. We had contests for a number of local offices. I’m registered with no party affiliation, but there was one non-partisan race that needed thinning out and one race that would be settled by the Republican primary. It was a fairly easy task to fill out my ballot!

    I was struck again by the forest of signs around the polling place. There’s a sign indicating how close people can be to the entrance if they are going to solicit people’s votes. Actually nobody was all that close. They had chosen to gather around the entrance to the property Several people not only had signs, but had volunteers with t-shirts and hats who would wave to prospective voters on their way in. My precinct is in a church, so I suspect those folks wasted a bunch of waves on people visiting the church office or something of the sort.

    It’s not my major point, but one guy was standing by the road, and someone, possibly a friend, or perhaps even a political opponent had pulled up beside him in a pickup truck and they were talking. He waved to me and then tried to wave me around the truck, but unfortunately he also waved someone coming from the other direction. It took him a couple of minutes to think of the idea of getting that pickup truck out of the way of voters trying to get to the polls or leave again after voting.

    What I’m wondering is just how much such a display of signs and waving people impacts anyone’s interest in voting. My approach to choosing candidates is to read their web sites, read the literature they send out, read the newspaper interviews or fact sheets on them, and so forth. On local candidates, information can be hard to come by, but usually you can find out something more substantive than the person’s name and the office for which they are running.

    I can’t resist another detour here on the subject of campaign literature. This year I did read one piece of campaign literature that would have impacted my vote if I had been able to vote in that primary. (The candidate involved won his primary.) This was a simple postcard with a list of claims that I could easily fact check, and which appear to have been mostly true. They were negative, but provided good reasons not to vote for his opponent. Negative advertising can be of value. I don’t object to something just because it’s negative; I object if it is inaccurate or twisted and also negative.

    But to reiterate, how much do signs and waving people impact votes? Earlier in the campaign I saw some people holding signs for a candidate on an overpass over the interstate and waving to passing motorists. Is it possible that there is someone out there who doesn’t know who they plan to vote for and lets themselves be persuaded because they saw someone standing on an overpass with a sign and waving? It just seems too bizarre for words.

    Perhaps they just use that to gain name recognition, but then just what value is that type of recognition? You don’t know anything about the candidate. I get the sample ballots our elections office kindly provides and look up each and every candidate. Name recognition has nothing to do with it.

    Oh well, this will be only one of my election season rants. It seems to me that it is such a privilege to actually have a government in which we can each participate, and that any citizen would be willing to spend just a few minutes every couple of years to actually vote based on some idea of who the candidates are and what they stand for. Signs and waving people seem to argue against that.

  • Logos Blog is Back and Free Commentary Offer

    I got an e-mail late yesterday telling me that the Logos Blog is back and advertising a free commentary volume.

    I find the Logos software to be an essential of my Bible study day, and though I know very little about the commentary series that is offered (Cornerstone), the names involved read like a who’s who of evangelical Biblical scholarship.

    In any case, wander on over and check it out!

  • Numbers out of Context

    Here’s a quick example from Metacatholic. See how the meaning changes?

  • Methodists and Evolution

    I reported some time ago that the United Methodist General Conference had passed some resolutions in support of evolution and opposing teaching faith based ideas in the public school science classroom. There’s a story in the Fort Wayne, Indiana Journal-Gazette about how this happened and the role of a local church member.

    I have observed some people trying to get resolutions passed at annual conferences or occasionally at General Conference and the process is somewhat difficult and I know that the individuals involved put a lot of work into the process. It’s nice to see people willing to be that involved. I do note that it seems that resolutions from general conference have little weight in practice.

    I would say that in the four congregations of which I have been a member, for example, the social principles only played a noticeable role in the most recent, and even there many members would probably be surprised to learn that there are social principles. (For non-UM folks, let me note that the social principles are only one area in the Methodist discipline which I’m using as an example, not the full statement of our doctrine and polity.)

    Perhaps it would be a good idea for Methodist pastors, teachers, and church leaders to refer to the social principles and other portions of the Discipline and Resolutions even when we don’t particularly like what they say, as will inevitably happen.

    Two early experiences of mine in the United Methodist Church come to mind. First, after I had read the relevant portions of the United Methodist Discipline prior to joining my first Methodist congregation, I asked the pastor about the social principles. I pointed out certain ones with which I could not agree. “Oh, the social principles,” he said, “we don’t really pay that much attention to those here.”

    The second was teaching in the same church, when I was asked to teach about the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian Perfection. I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, and SDAs have a substantial bit of Wesleyan in background and doctrine, so I was acquainted with Wesleyan theology. I looked up what we had in the Discipline, and included it on slides for the class. I found that of those attending (perhaps 40 or so), only the pastor and I were aware that there was such a thing as the doctrine of Christian perfection.

    It’s the Methodist doctrinal position with which I am probably least comfortable, but I would have thought more people would be aware of it. My guess is that pastors know their members are not comfortable with “perfection” in just about any form and just prefer to let that one slide.

    And just to get back to the topic in the title, I suspect evolution comes under the same heading. Why get into the debate if you don’t have to?

  • He Wouldn’t Be on my Long List

    . . . but Barack Obama has chosen Joe Biden as his running mate.

  • Added to Blogroll: Biblical Theology

    The new Biblical Theology blog looks like a good new source of things to talk about from posts written by highly qualified contributors. (HT: awilum.com.)

  • Anchor Bible for Logos

    In comments to my earlier post on the Anchor Bible for pastors, Kent notes that the Anchor Bible will soon be available.

    One of the best ways to avoid getting bogged down in details is to employ the search capabilities of an electronic version the ability to hyperlink from Scripture references to the Greek text and English translations. This is a far more useful way to use the Anchor Yale commentaries for preaching.

    You might be interested in a new, electronic edition of the Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries from Logos Bible Software. It’s much easier to use than print versions, and about $2,500 cheaper.

    and

    I forgot to mention the website:

    Anchor Yale Bible (83 Vols.).

    (There’s also an interesting discussion on the Logos Blog.)

    Thanks to Kent for posting this here. I wish I could afford it, but even at the wonderful price, it’s beyond me at the moment. Those of you who can, however ….

    I don’t know as this will solve all the problems I discussed regarding the value of the Anchor Bible for the busy pastor preparing a sermon, but it will certainly help in finding just the points that are relevant for current activity.

  • Well-Placed Faith

    I occasionally write something for my wife’s devotional list, and this morning she needed me to write. I had intended to post this one (Well-Placed Faith) here, but decided to use it as a devotional this morning. It’s some brief thoughts on faith, attitude, and commitment, from a Christian and devotional point of view.