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MSNBC Article on Condaleeza Rice

I’ve always though that Rice was a tremendously intelligent person but at the same time I intensely disliked the policies she has been advocating. There’s an interesting opinion piece in Newsweek/MSNBC.com by Marcus Mabry that may give more insight into who she is. She built the image the public has of her as an ice…

Miracles and Community

I’ve been reading Mark through as part of preparation to resume my series on the Gospel of Mark for the Bible Pacesetter Podcast. Right now I’m listening to and then podcasting recordings of the radio program from which this developed just before we closed that program down three years ago. It’s an interesting process getting…

Walking To New Orleans

Well, not quite. I’ll be driving. My stepson John Webb is a pitcher for the Iowa Cubs (Chicago Cubs AAA team in the Pacific Coast League) who are in New Orleans for a series against the New Orleans Zephyrs. Last night the Cubs beat the Zephyrs and John put in two good innings in relief….

Praying, Being Heard, and Not Getting It

7Who, in the days of his flesh, offered entreaties and petitions to the one who was able to save him from death with loud cries and tears, and he was heard because of his piety. 8Even though he was a son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered, 9and being made whole he became…

Natural Production of New Information

One of the key arguments for Intelligent Design (ID) is that new information cannot be produced by natural processes, and thus there must be intervention by an intelligent designer for this new information to appear. That’s a crude statement, but it covers the ground pretty well. One problem I saw with the argument when I…

Look at New Perspectives on Paul

This will be a slightly different post than my usual for this blog. Normally I grab a Bible passage or a principle of interpretation and comment on it. In this post, I want to tie together several threads of my blogging and teaching and point the direction toward some new questions that I’d like to…

Centrist Third Party?

I thought I’d blogged on this before, but I can’t find it. Eleanor Swift of Newsweek is writing about Unity 2008, a group that’s trying to create a third party movement and get on the ballot in all 50 states. The idea is to nominate a presidential candidate of one party and a vice-presidential candidate…

Church Planting Body Count

I regularly find myself surprised at how surprised some folks are at the unsurprising. We should, after all, expect people to be the people they are, and Mark Driscoll is Mark Driscoll. Shocking, isn’t it? Well, Mark Driscoll prepared a video for a conference on church planting in which he was very much himself, and…

Languages of Forgiveness

Christianity Today has an interesting article on languages of apology (and forgiveness). There are a number of helpful thoughts in this piece that can be helpful. The author, Gary Chapman (The Love Languages of God, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate) relates this to couples, in which I think…

Dave Warnock Reads PFOT

…. Pierced for our Transgressions, that is. Taking his own advice about reading books with a viewpoint opposed to his own, he is working his way through this book. I’ve read other materials on penal substitution (Justification by Faith Alone, for example, which maintains that the forensic nature of justification is critical to salvation by…

Anti Any War

One has to wonder what some politicians are thinking, when one considers the following exchange (via MSNBC): It wasn’t so easy for Obama to avoid the firebombs from the two peaceniks on stage. Kucinich upbraided his rival for talking tough about the use of force against Iran. “I think that it’s important for people to…