What I Want for Election Day – A Counter-Terror Strategy
It’s getting within a quarter or so of the first votes, so I thought I’d put in a few posts on what I, as a self-proclaimed moderate independent want for election day. I have to note that it doesn’t look thus far like I’m going to get it, but one can always wish, no? The…
George Bush and God Concepts
A number of folks around the internet have gotten pretty worked up about [tag]George Bush[/tag]’s comment to an Al Arabiya reporter in an interview that he believes Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Here’s an extract (source: www.whitehouse.gov): Well, first of all, I believe in an almighty God, and I believe that all the…
Dawkins and the Jewish Lobby
Ah, that’s a provocative title, isn’t it? [tag]Richard Dawkins[/tag] is setting up an organization to help lobby for atheists. Despite my many serious disagreements with him, I don’t think that’s a bad idea, because atheists are viewed very negatively, and I think unfairly so. In fact, in many ways Dawkins himself is unfairly viewed in…
Race and the Legal System: A Perspective Check
As I have blogged occasionally about the [tag]Jena 6[/tag] I have been reminded of the very different perspectives that different people have on issues such as this. For white residents of Jena, a common theme has been the defense of their community, pointing out that they are not bad people, that they have a good…
Bread and Wine of Luke 17:5-10
I know this is late for those preaching from the lectionary, but through my Technorati watch on the tag [tag]lectionary[/tag], I found this post on Bread and Wine. I think the post helps clarify the passage very well. With reference to God’s laws, I would add that in general what God has told us to…
Psalm 137 around the Web
I have a tendency to get caught up in an idea. When I started adding a lectionary tag to posts that I thought were relevant to upcoming lectionary readings my intention was to simply tag things I was going to write anyhow, and also to encourage myself to write a little bit more about my…
The Human Face of Scripture
Psalm 137 came up in the lectionary for this week. Now there was a time when we would get this Psalm at least with the final verse left out. That verse reads “Blessed is the one who seizes your little ones and dashes them against a rock.” One should understand, of course, that this was…
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. Don’t miss this picture I think that Joe Carter is way too worked up over this. It’s a pin, after all. I’d take mine off, but then I’ve never worn one. Peter Kirk reports on some…
Lectionary Category
I have added a category “Lectionary” to all the (relevant) blogs to which I contribute. That includes my big three (see the sidebar) along with a couple of group blogs, one merely shared with my wife. Some years ago before I had a blog I tried to keep up with creating a new page each…
Suggest BOTH of them Resign
Senator [tag]Larry Craig[/tag] says he won’t resign even though his attempt to withdraw his guilty plea failed. It seems that some Republicans are afraid that if they urge Senator Craig to resign, it will appear that they are discriminating–what about Senator [tag]David Vitter[/tag]? The Idaho Republican’s decision gives his GOP colleagues two unpleasant choices. They…
Free Burma Day
I will be participating in Free Burma day tomorrow. There will be a banner reading Free Burma, underlined for the full day and I will not be posting. You can find more information on this action here.
On Creationisms – Quotes Link
I want to promote this link from the comments to a full post. There are a number of valuable quotes in this post showing the different views of creation that are held by various Christians. The binary creation vs evolution controversy oversimplifies the issues considerably. One should always be careful with quotes. First, I have…
C. F. D. Moule
Peter Kirk reports the passing of C. F. D. Moule. I have enjoyed using his Idiom Book of New Testament Greek. Peter provides some details and related links. He will be missed by the Biblical Studies community.
Blogrolling Blogrolls Temporarily Disabled
I have temporarily disabled my blogrolling.com based blogrolls due to very slow loading. I will look into what can be done. Some blogrolls can probably be restored using another method. For the moment, however, the site was unusable with those blogrolls enabled.
MBWR #131 and My Highlights
The Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup has been posted. Thanks to Allan Bevere for his hard work. I’m doing today what I wish I always had time to do, which is look at a bunch of the posts and pick out some of my own highlights. These don’t coincide with the “Best of the Methodist Blogosphere”…
Thoughts on Lists of Spiritual Gifts
In one of the sermons I heard this morning (I attended services at two different churches), the scripture reading was from Ephesians 4:1-12. When Ephesians 4:11 was read, I remembered a discussion I had some time back about whether pastors and teachers here was intended to refer to one group of people. The individual with…
Satellite Imagery Confirms Myanmar Atrocities
Those interested in the situation in [tag]Myanmar[/tag] (formerly Burma) will be interested in this story from ScienceNOW published by the AAAS. Researchers used high resolution images from commercial satellites to confirm a substantial number of reports of atrocities by the Burmese military. For those interested in taking action, see the U. S. Campaign for Burma.
Culture, Translation, and Literal Meaning
I just read two excellent articles on Bible translation, one on a blog, and the other coming to me via e-mail. It seems to be very difficult for people to get an idea of just how language works. The notion that each word has a fixed, eternal, precise meaning just seems to hang on. Learning…
Theisms, Creationisms, and Evolutionisms: An Exercise in Definition
The debate about labels is one of the most interesting aspects of the creation-evolution controversy to me, and at the same time one of the most frustrating. Since my primary training is in Biblical languages, and by my own efforts in linguistics, the way words are used simply fascinates me. There is plenty of influence…
Comments and Akismet
Akismet has grabbed a few comments again, largely on the Jena 6 issue. If anyone did comment and thought you had been censored, it was inadvertent. Check for your comment now. If it still does not appear, enter it again. I would appreciate a comment on this post letting me know when you commented and…
Richard Colling Letter
A few days ago I added Steve Martin’s blog An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution to my blogroll and subscribed to it’s RSS feed. I have mentioned frequently that there are a number of evangelical Christians who accept evolution, and I’m glad to see more of them involved in the debate. Today Steve posted a letter…
Most Obvious Baseball Quote of the Day
Since my step-son John Webb played for their AAA Iowa Cubs this year, I keep close watch on the cubs in general. I just love it when someone provides us with some information we couldn’t have figured out for ourselves: Were still in the drivers seat, manager Lou Piniella said. Weve just got to start…