Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Links

  • Morning Reading – 11/6/2007

    I read a large number of blog entries each day, and I never have time to comment on everything I’d like to. Considering how many posts I do write, this may be a good thing. One way to comment without having to write is by linking to extremely good posts, and this morning provided me with some excellent material.

    Responding to Torture

    First, I have been trying to get a handle on writing a post on torture, with the Mukasey hearings, but I haven’t gotten beyond “torture is evil.” After that it feels odd to be explaining that torture is bad. It’s so much a part of me, that I have a hard time taking it seriously as a debate, but there it is, being debated by presumably serious people.

    But Joe Carter has saved me on this point, by writing a 100% on target, excellent post, Our Tortured Silence: The Shameful Response of Christians to Waterboarding.

    All I would add is that our fear sometimes makes us waffle on our moral convictions. We must fight terrorism, but we must be sure to maintain our integrity while we do it, or the terrorists win even if we physically defeat them. Let’s be sure we like who we are when we’re done.

    Dividing the Denominations

    Through an unrelated comment, I found a post on the division of the church, Happy Reformation Day/Hallowe’en. This relates to my own previous post, Setting Doctrinal Priorities. I’m not concerned about their being denominations, or at least accountability organizations that bring congregations together, but we very often do not see the unifying factors, and thus splinter further and further.

    What is the Gospel?

    Again, relating to two earlier posts, Adrian Warnock has posted on justification again, and after quoting a description of forensic justification, and details of imputed righteousness, he says:

    That, my dear reader, is the Gospel. What better explanation of it have you ever read?

    Now I don’t have a problem with Adrian seeing the gospel there, but that is simply one way of expressing it; it is not the only one. When we divide along such detailed lines, I see many problems ahead for Christian unity.

  • MBWR #136 Posted

    At Allan R. Bevere. Thanks again to Allan for this contribution to the Methodist blogosphere.

  • Biblical Studies Carnival XXIII Posted

    . . . at Ancient Hebrew Poetry. I don’t have a post in there this time, but that’s not a complaint–I can’t think of what I’d nominate in this case. I will certainly get some blogging fodder from reading the posts. There are certainly a substantial number of excellent biblioblogs available.

    Speaking of which, John continued his postings with things he left out of the first one and then a map of the world of Bible bloggers. The latter is especially useful.

    Enjoy!

  • Lingamish Blog Boredom

    David (Lingamish) tagged me with a meme I’m happy to get on board with. He asks that I name five up and coming blogs. The problem is there are so many. I’m going to focus on ones that have caught my attention recently. I’m late on this, but I have a good excuse–I was coordinating a conference over the weekend, and then I was recovering from coordinating the conference!

    1. An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution is a wonderful blog with thoughtful, courteous posts on the conflict about evolution in the Christian community. It’s been around since May, so I think it qualifies as young, and I would definitely call it “up and coming.” (I don’t know the age of the lead blogger, but who cares?)
    2. Among the Hills is a blog I picked up from my comments, and then found its haikus on lectionary texts. Since I’m always looking for ways to get people to creatively think about Bible passages, this caught my attention. It takes a bit of thinking to reduce a passage to 17 syllables.
    3. Come to the Waters is John Meunier’s blog, from which I get numerous links and quite a number of thoughtful posts. It’s definitely a worthwhile addition to your blogroll.
    4. The Rogues Gallery, subtitled “The Official Blog of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe” has provided some interesting material lately. I’m hoping it will live up to its promise and become regular reading for me. I first encountered this blog when I criticized one of the entries, which is a great reason to list it!
    5. And last, but not least, a little nepotism. My wife’s new blog is Jody Along the Path. I’m not sure if she’ll play this meme, as she’s new to blogging, but I’m glad to have her in the blogosphere as well as in real life.

    Well, those will do for now. Hopefully this will help alleviate David’s boredom.

  • Mid-week Links 10/31/07

    Just a couple of really interesting things I saw, but don’t have time to comment on fully:

  • Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup #135

    . . . has been posted. My post received mention as best of the Methodist blogosphere.

    I’ve been coordinating a small conference over the weekend, and I hope to write a few words about it here. I also hope to make some comment on other posts from the MBWR. It was, as Allan mentioned, a very good crop.

  • MBWR #134

    . . . has been posted by Allan R. Bevere. I appreciate his efforts on this roundup–I regularly find thought provoking posts to read and/or respond to by that means.

  • Honourable Mention for Threads and Stuff to Read

    This from An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. Of course I use the honourable spelling for honourable in honour of Canadian connections. He links to my post Theisms, Creationisms, and Evolutionisms: An Exercise in Definition. I appreciate the mention and link.

    Since I have been writing a good bit on Dawkins, and linking to other material about him, I also wanted to mention the post Steve Martin named as Post of the Month, which is actually a two part series titled Sympathy for the Devil’s Chaplain part 1 and part 2. Dr. Matheson has noted what many others have seen–Dawkins is positively brilliant in his scientific writing and falls pretty flat on religion. I mean to experts in the field of theology, the difference is certainly obvious. It’s not a matter of disagreeing, though I do. It’s a matter of the quality of the argumentation.

    Dr. Matheson’s blog is also wonderful, and I have several other articles tagged to read soon. He writes well, and most of it is comprehensible to a non-scientist such as myself. I really love reading his profile: Associate Professor of Biology, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan | Reformed Christian | developmental cell biologist | evolutionist | NCSE Steve | baseball fan | Bardolator.

    His blog will go on my blogroll and I’ve already subscribed to the RSS.

  • Random Interesting Links 10/5/07

    Here are a few links to stuff that caught my attention, but won’t be getting more comment from me.

  • Complegalitarian

    Wayne Leman, in a commendable effort to maintain a tighter focus on Better Bibles, has started a new group blog Complegalitarian, which he defines as “Adj. Pertaining to complementarianism and egalitarianism.” This would take the largest single topic not directly related to Bible translation off of the Better Bibles blog.

    As I read it, discussion of translations related to such issues would still be welcome at Better Bibles, but discussions of the broader related issues of theology and how egalitarianism or complementarianism works in practice would be left for the new blog.

    I think this could be an enjoyable new blogging option.