Featured Posts
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Sorrow Like My Sorrow – Lamentations 1:12
Can we really understand the suffering of another person or they ours?
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What Is Biblical Literacy?
We complain about it, write about it, claim it’s important or even critical, design programs to create it, but what is it? I don’t mean that none of us know what we mean when we say “biblically literate” or “biblically illiterate,” but do we all mean the same thing? I don’t think we do, and…
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Fences: Mending or Rending
The following is a sermon I presented at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Pensacola on September 11,2005 and originally posted here on September 13, 2005. I’m reposting it because when I went to look for it, I found that the original post had somehow been truncated, and also because there is a one word at a…
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Experiencing the (Baptism of the) Holy Spirit
This is a topic where I tend to make just about everyone uncomfortable. Long time readers may recall a previous discussion of speaking in tongues, and my own experience of it. Those who expect me to be intellectually oriented and rational are uncomfortable with mystical experiences, and many who are comfortable with the mystical experiences…
Social Notes (see all)
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Don’t Judge Discipleship by Numbers
This post is to call your attention to a post by Beth Quick, Mark Driscoll, Mainline Churches, and The Numbers Game (Hat tip: MBWR #82, with strong second to the Best of the Methodist blogosphere! note). I’m also closing the comments here so that any additional discussion will be centered around her blog. I want…
New Florida Citizens for Science Web Site
The new Florida Citizens for Science web site is now up and running. Check it out at Florida Citizens for Science. Not too surprisingly, the blog can be found at http://www.flascience.org/wp. Check out the new format and the interesting information. Florida Citizens for Science will be watching closely as Florida begins to revise science standards.
Allies for Evolution, not Everything
Update: Jack Krebs has now posted a longer summary of the talk and links to audio files. I haven’t listened to the audio yet, but I don’t see anything in the summary that would alter my view on this. I’m glad Jack and Kansas Citizens for Science made sure to get good audio of this….
Witnessing and Proselytizing
Continuing my run through the Christian Blog Carnival, Laura has a good post Witnessing – Proselytizing – Defending the Faith. I think there are two important points to keep in mind: Listening to the other person(s) in order to find out what their interest is. I’ve found that many people are interested in discussing my…
Free Speech, Gay Rights, and the Bible
I want to call attention to this post and to the story behind it. An evangelical Christian was arrested in south Wales and charged with using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.” Ed Brayton said: I am obviously a staunch advocate of gay rights, but some of the people who claim to be on…
Hebrews 12:1-12: The Lord’s Discipline
(Note: I’m going to introduce this passage as a whole, but when I do a verse by verse study, I’m going to divide it in two–12:1-4 and 12:5-12 simply for convenience.) If you follow the participatory study method, then you may notice that I’m presenting the last step first. You’ll find that this happens quite…
Participatory Study Series on Basic Bible Study
Since most of the existing pamphlets in the Participatory Study Series were released before I started this blog, I’d like to go back through previous releases and let you know what is available. For those who are not aware, these pamphlets are available free on the web. I provide a PDF, and HTML and either…
Nitpicking Translations
Centuri0n responded, in a way to my post Conscience of a Christian Publisher. I posted a response once, and unfortunately that response was eaten by the server. I was able to restore everything else, but this I have to rewrite. I’m not trying to repeat the other post precisely, so if you read it, don’t…
Excellent Health Article
Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I pretty regularly lash out at the news media. It’s not that I think they’re biassed to one end or the other of the political spectrum. I just think they’re biassed stupid. Well, I just want to point out an article today in Newsweek that…
Server Problem
Update: Everything seems to be working. If you made a comment and it’s missing, let me know. Also, the post that used to be at this URL, Nitpicking Translations, can be found by following the link. ***** A server glitch resulted in the temporary loss of some posts and several comments. I’m working to restore…
The Age of the Earth
Through the Christian Blog Carnival I found this post by Amanda from Imago Dei blog. She has been working through videos by Kent Hovind, and came to the conclusion that the age of the earth was not that important, and that Kent Hovind’s tactics were not going to accomplish all that much. Though all know…
Other Blogging
I divided up my blogging between three blogs, other than the group of official blogs where I am a contributor, because I thought that I would be burdening people with excessive extraneous (say that 5 times fast) material. In particular, I comment here mostly on religion and its impact on society as well as on…
Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Grammar
Peter Kirk has a post at the Better Bibles blog discussing what type of language the Bible should be translated into. (Note that I decline to respond to prescriptive grammarians by continuing to use a preposition to end my sentence with.) Peter says: It seems to me that the only people who have the right…
Hebrews 2:10-18: Like His Brothers and Sisters
While chapter 2 is not the core or torso of the argument of the book of Hebrews, it is at least one of the legs on which it stands. To prepare yourself to look at these last few verses, re-read the entire chapter, and then consider looking again at my posts: Jesus as Human and…
Christian Carnival CXXXVIII Posted
My Participatory Bible Study blog is represented in this week’s Christian Carnival CXXXVIII: The Kingdom Beacon Herald. I’ve intended to submit something for some time, and though it’s not hard, I’ve just never gotten around to selecting a good entry. It looks like a fun set of entries, including not only mine, but also this…
Christian Carnival CXXXVIII: The Kingdom Beacon Herald
The Christian Carnival CXXXVIII has been posted and for the first time I’ve submitted an entry from this blog. Go! Read! Enjoy!
Conscience of a Christian Publisher
A friend tipped me off by e-mail to a post, and I think it is appropriate to respond. The poster, Centurion, expresses his concern about Christian booksellers and publishers, and their choices in terms of what to offer their customers, especially considering that many of them regard their business as a ministry as well. I’m…
Religion and Terror, Cause and Effect
In an article titled The New Naysayers, Newsweek discusses some new books by atheist authors who blame many of the world’s ills on religion. It’s an interesting article, though not much of this material is particularly new. It seems to me that a good deal of writing about history or about the general state of…
From Saint to Sinner
Lingamish comments today on sinners becoming saints and touches on the possibility of saints becoming sinners. It’s high drama for a sinner to become a saint (Read St. Augustine’s Confessions) but higher still is the tale of a saint who becomes a sinner. A fictional example from Spanish literature is San Manuel Bueno Martir by…
Squaring the Wesleyan Quadrilateral
One of the things that originally attracted me to the United Methodist Church was the quadrilateral, in the form in which it is presented in the discipline. Since becoming a member I have found out that most members of United Methodist congregations have no idea what this is, that some members use the quadrilateral to…
Consider Christianity – part 3
This is the third of my set of comments on Elgin Hushbeck’s “Consider Christianity” series. In the previous two messages I introduced my approach and dealt with Chapter 1. I now move on to Chapter 2. Chapter 2 is called “The Bible and Modern Criticism”. Now, Elgin doesn’t like modern criticism very much. To quote…
Hebrews 2:5-9: Lower than the Angels
I’m finally getting back to my series on Hebrews. I apologize for the delay. I will also be posting new entries soon in the series on Isaiah 24-27 and Genesis, where we will be going to chapter 6. In the meantime . . . I’m taking a very short piece of a passage for this…
Translation and Knowing God
Paul at Grace rant . . . what? says he has gotten back to reading his Greek New Testament. I congratulate him on this spiritual discipline, and I do believe studying the Bible in its original languages can be a spiritual discipline, but I do think some of his additional thoughts deserve some reconsideration. He…
Red-Letter Christians
Matt Friedman has a column on Agape Press, and links to it from his blog. In it, he complains of Christians, in his words members of “the Evangelical left” who call themselves red-letter Christians. The name is derived from the practice of some Bible editions that put the words of Jesus in red. To Friedman,…