NLT Study Bible – Initial Reaction
I intended to get started on my response to the NLT Study Bible (Bible Nlt) written a bit earlier, but several things have kept me from getting started. I’m going to write two posts today and tomorrow. This first one is simply a quick, preliminary reaction to this new study edition based on the NLT…
Georgia and Ossetia – Asking the Right Questions
I am not proposing answers at this point, because I haven’t had time to study the situation in any detail, but it seems to me the right time to point out some problems with the questions. It appears to me that almost everything I read about the situation with Georgia, Russia, and Ossetia involves ad…
Amateur Extra
No, not an extra in a movie, Amateur Radio Extra class license. This post should fall under the category of “personal” and “bragging”, but yesterday evening I took and passed the text for my Amateur Extra class license. What does this let me do? Well, pretty much nothing that I couldn’t do already, and wasn’t…
Todd Bentley’s Marriage
I had thought about writing something on this, but I think this post says most of what I would say, only better. Especially considering that there has been no marital infidelity reported, and folks have been upfront in with this, it doesn’t seem to me to provide any new basis to judge Bentley’s ministry. I…
How Incarnational?
Well, it seems to be my day for linking, which is not surprising. (For those who wonder why I’ve been blogging less, though I think I’m still blogging quite a lot, it’s because I have to file a form 990EZ for a non-profit with which I’m involved. It is really not that complex, but I’m…
John Hobbins on TUCC
When I wrote much earlier about Jeremiah Wright, I tried just a little bit to put it in context of the African American church as I’ve experienced it. That effort was weakened by the fact that I’ve never attended TUCC, and thus anyone could say I was reflecting a very different experience based on those…
Forgiving or Excusing
I’ve noticed in recent discussions both online and offline that there seems to be some fuzziness about the difference between these two concepts. I think that perhaps our human tendency is to either excuse or condemn. By “excusing” I mean either minimizing a transgression or perhaps even claiming it’s not a transgression at all. When…
Living Biblically
I could have told him this wouldn’t work: On the other hand, it appears to me that he learned a number of lessons that Christians would do well to learn, such as the fact that we all pick and choose. The question is really whether our criteria for choosing are appropriate.
Photo and Haiku at Quiet Paths
Every so often Christine’s photos and/or Haiku are so good that I just have to call your attention to them. Stairways is great.
Two Good Things from Church
My pastor (First United Methodist Church, Pensacola) today caught my attention in a special way two different times. The first was when he announced the reading for his sermon. We had already read the gospel lesson, and the Psalm was included in the call to worship. He then said that we needed to take the…
Edwards: Is Marital Fidelity Strictly Personal?
I have posted before on the sex scandals involving Larry Craig and David Vitter. Now with the admission of infidelity by John Edwards, we have yet another sex scandal. One response, as is often the case with marital infidelity, is to claim that this is strictly a personal issue, one between him and his wife….
Redistribution: Wealth and Responsibility
I blogged a couple of days ago about redistribution of wealth, and then I read this post at Pursuing Holiness that discusses responsibility. Putting the two together it occurred to me that both are cases of redistribution–one of responsibility and the other of money. In censorship, we take the responsibility for choosing away from the…
Christian Carnival CCXXXVI Posted
. . . at Brain Cramps for God. Lots of food for thought. Oh for more reading time!
Barack Obama’s Income Redistribution Plan
In a recent ad we hear the following: “A windfall profits tax on big oil to give families a thousand-dollar rebate,” an announcer in the ad says. (Source: MSNBC.com.) The entire energy debate seems to have become a pandering game, with each candidate dulling any responsible suggestions he might make with various bribes to the…
Fallible Bible
I also Thank God for Blessing us with a Fallible Bible.
Quick Note on The Golden Compass
I ended up with a copy of this almost by accident, and have written some notes. While I’m not overly impressed by it, I see no reason for the controversy. Notes are here.
New Creation-Evolution Site
Laura links to a new site on creation and evolution written by someone she knows, and I wanted to promote the link to an actual post. I must say that I have substantial areas of disagreement with the post she directly links on thermodynamics, but I’m so involved on the theological side right now, which…
An Answer for Mark: Death as a Divine Tool
Mark responded to my post Dealing with the Theological Implications of Evolution, and in turn poses a question to me, well summarized in the last sentence of his last paragraph: What is the particular problem that is raised that Stegosaurus had a million or so years in the sun but now is no longer? Which…
Great Way to Call Someone a Liar
I’m not following the controversy in question very closely, as it’s largely a UK thing (or so it appears to me), but there is a great dust-up about the management of the former SPCK bookshops in the UK by the Saint Stephen the Great Trust (I’ve seen a few variations on this). If you want…
Quick Note on Applying Matthew 7:1
(This is an exegetical and application note on Matthew 7:1 to accompany a devotional on my wife’s devotional list.) There are two directions that people have taken on Matthew 7:1, both of which I think are mistaken. Even Jesus cannot create a one liner that someone else can’t apply foolishly. The first approach to Matthew…
Of Double Standards and Cesspools
Steve Matheson at Quintessence of Dust notes regarding Dembski’s Uncommon Descent blog: Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants. . . . C’mon Steve! Don’t hold back! Tell us how you really feel! While I lead with the controversial (and I agree with him about UcD),…
NRSV Study Bible
Westminster/John Knox Press is publishing a study Bible including the apocrypha, The Discipleship Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version Including Apocrypha. There are some notes on this at New Epistles. It looks like an interesting one.
Dealing with the Theological Implications of Evolution
There are two extremes in how Christians respond to the possible theological implications of evolutionary theory once they are convinced that the theory of evolution is valid. The first is to claim that there are no implications whatsoever. This is represented by the statement: “The Bible tells us that God created; science tells us how…
Series on Reading the Text(s) of Scripture
This series, done jointly on Everyday Liturgy and Through a Glass Darkly should be well worth your time to follow. I will certainly be following it.