“I don’t think that I’m a good Christian. I know I’m not. But even if I’m a bad one, I am one.” — Vox Day
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Monday, September 01, 2014
Sunday, August 31, 2014
It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over
Saturday, August 30, 2014
The Bible Contains the Word of God
Friday, August 29, 2014
Too Hot to Handle: Why I Don’t Share My Faith
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
The ‘Moral Hazard’ of Calling ISIS a ‘Cancer’
“But if the ‘war on terror’ has taught us anything, it is that such moralistic language can blind its users to consequences. Describing a group as ‘inexplicable’ and ‘nihilistic,’ as Mr. Kerry did, tends to obscure the group’s strategic aims and preclude further analysis. Resorting to ritualized rhetoric can be a very costly mistake if it leads one to misunderstand an enemy and to take actions that inadvertently help its cause.”
But the Times’ concern about moralistic language is misplaced.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Inbox: Qman Asks the $64,000 Question
“Very interesting and relevant blog. The question I have at this point is who actually benefits from it at this site? Is there anyone else out there? There seems to be little response as far as I can tell. I did not see a mission statement for this site and if it’s only very local, then wouldn’t a wider distribution be better for getting across insights like this?”
Ask and you shall receive ...
Monday, August 25, 2014
Science Redux
“In many respects, the word ‘naturalism’ comes closest to conveying what scientists regard as the spirit of science: the source of its superiority to religious thought. But what reason is there to conclude that everything is, to quote philosopher Alexander Byrne, ‘an aspect of the universe … revealed by the natural sciences’? There is no reason at all.”
“The comparable claim would be, ‘(a) I’m a scientist; (b) I’m an expert on contract law’. You’re an expert on contract law because you’ve studied particle physics? Give me a break. An expert on the existence of God because you’ve studied particle physics? I request the same break, the same suspension of belief, the same absence of commitment to whatever it is you’re saying.”
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Throwing the Old Testament Under the Science Bus [Pt 2]
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Throwing the Old Testament Under the Science Bus [Pt 1]
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
When Life Really Hurts
Monday, August 18, 2014
I’ll Wait, Thanks (or, I guess this makes me a ‘Huddle Person’)
“... you can still love God and love people and read those early Genesis stories as myth with some important things to teach us. Not all of you will be ready to do that, and that’s perfectly ok. But know that if you create these dichotomies where we force people to either fall into the camp of scientifically blind biblical literalism or a camp where they totally write off the Bible as a complete lie, you’re going to rob a lot of people of some of the richness that the Bible offers. You’re going to create a lot more jaded, cynical people that are completely anti-religion out there. And you are going to continue to repress the questions that lurk in the back of your own mind. And that’s just not healthy. That sort of thinking actually quashes and limits human thriving in the world.”
— Michael Gungor
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Gifts, Choices and Aaron Hernandez
“Good burst off the line from the three-point stance into a four-yard hook route. Good pad level and leg drive.”
— from Aaron Hernandez’s Gut Check Scouting Analysis, December 2009
“His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.”
(Psalm 147:10-11)
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Do We Get the Leaders We Deserve?
“Every nation gets the government it deserves.”
— Joseph de Maistre, 1811
“No, I don’t think Obama can be held wholly responsible for the nightmare darkness descending on the world in the absence of American leadership. He won the election fair and square. But he won it in the country of the blind.”
Friday, August 15, 2014
Too Hot to Handle: Which Ten Commandments?
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Is That All There Is?
“The lyrics of this song are written from the point of view of a person who is disillusioned with events in life that are supposedly unique experiences. The singer tells of witnessing her family’s house on fire when she was a little girl, seeing the circus, and falling in love for the first time. After each recital she expresses her disappointment in the experience. She suggests that we ‘break out the booze and have a ball — if that’s all there is ...’ ”
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Too Hot / Inbox (... or Help! Help!)
Testimony in the Twilight Zone
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Inbox: Subordination in Eternity Past
“Can you show from Scripture whether the roles within the Godhead (specifically the submission of the Son to the Father evident during his life on earth and subsequent glorification) were characteristic of the relationship between Father and Son in [eternity past, as we have agreed to refer to it, for the sake of distinguishing it from the eternity we have to look forward to].”
“How about, ‘Then I said, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book”.’ ”
Monday, August 11, 2014
Exam Return
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Appearance and Reality
Saturday, August 09, 2014
Inbox: Renewing Them to Repentance
“[Hebrews 6] continues in the same vein as the previous chapters. Just as the Israelites who came out of Egypt came right to the edge of the promised land but didn’t enter because of unbelief, causing the Lord to seal them in their decision even though many of them lived for decades longer, so too these Hebrews had come to the edge of Christianity and were being warned that the Lord would seal their rejection — there’s a point at which unbelief is so insulting that the Lord seals a person in it even though they’re still alive. Also, this isn’t a danger that people face today. The Hebrews were being warned that since they had had an exceptional testimony of signs and wonders (something which isn’t present today), a choice to go back would be unforgivable.”
Friday, August 08, 2014
Thursday, August 07, 2014
Too Hot to Handle: The Christian View of Premarital Sex [Part 2]
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Too Hot to Handle: The Christian View of Premarital Sex [Part 1]
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
The Worst Advertisement
“As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.”I don’t know if expressing it in this form originated with Orwell, but the sentiment has, I’m sure, been around as long as there have been Christians. Why? Because there are always among us the immature, the untaught, the uncommitted, and those whose professions of faith are false for one reason or another. There will be until the Lord returns.
— George Orwell
Small consolation that those who express the sentiment compare it to the insincerity, incompetence or general undesirability they observe in the adherents of other philosophies.
Monday, August 04, 2014
What Makes a Marriage a Marriage?
The answer may surprise you.
It’s not the ring, the dress or the ceremony. It’s not the preacher, the church or the gathered friends and family. It’s not government sanction or the filling out of the correct legal forms. It’s not the taking of vows or the proclamation of banns.
We do all that stuff, and there are sound reasons not to discard most of these customs. One is foolish to spurn the accrued wisdom of generations simply for the sake of novelty. And there is value in the blessing and support of family and friends. There is strength in community. As Immanuel Can pointed out recently, marriage is hard and we need all the incentives we can gather, especially in this individualistic age, to remind us to take it seriously.
But not one of these trappings is essential.
Sunday, August 03, 2014
Wedded Blitz
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Saturday, August 02, 2014
The Violence Inherent in the System
“... if the popular Christian notion of abstinence is wrong, we have been mentally and emotionally abusing quite literally millions of people.”— Student, to Jerry Walls
“But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell ... it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.”— Richard Dawkins
Thursday, July 31, 2014
New, Improved, Advanced ... You Need One
A more current version of this post is available here.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Judenhass and Armageddon
“Why are Western liberals always more offended by Israeli militarism than by any other kind of militarism? It’s extraordinary.”
“Anyone possessed of a critical faculty must at some point have wondered why there’s such a double standard in relation to Israeli militarism, why missiles fired by the Jewish State are apparently more worthy of condemnation than missiles fired by Washington, London, Paris, the Turks, Assad, or just about anyone else on Earth.”
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Who Reads Anymore?
Monday, July 28, 2014
Who’s That Prophecy For Anyway?
Sunday, July 27, 2014
One More Time: Christians and Reincarnation
The idea behind reincarnation is that the more experience one has in life, the more pure and enlightened one becomes. A mere seventy-odd years is not enough time to attain perfection. Therefore a person’s soul must go through the cycle of life, death and rebirth — known as the “Wheel of Being” — until he or she has reached enlightenment and perfection, and is prepared to meet and/or become part of God.
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Anxiety and Slumber
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”(Psalm 127:1,2)
Friday, July 25, 2014
Too Hot to Handle: The Role of a Senior Pastor
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Lies, Myths and Misinformation: Christianity Causes Wars
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
The Naked Pastor and the Danger of Gratuitous Novelty
“He began drawing images of a young woman in all kinds of situations. He recognized early on that these drawings weren’t just random pictures, but were the articulation of his interior life’s journey through spiritual, emotional, intellectual and social transition. He realized that Sophia was him!”
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Islam 100, Post-Christianity 0
“I do just wonder that if an improvement is needed between the faith groups, one way of promoting that might be to encourage interfaith marriages.”
“Of my two sons one has become a Muslim and of my two daughters one of those has become a Muslim, and I have 12 lovely grandchildren, seven of whom are little Muslims.”
And it’s all one way.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Lies, Myths and Misinformation: Smart People Are Atheists
“We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking ... I think religion is a neurological disorder ... I am just embarrassed that it has been taken over by people like evangelicals, by people who do not believe in science and rationality.”
“By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Who’s Running This Place Anyway?
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
How Not To Be Forgiven
Forgiveness is the great equalizer. In extending Christian forgiveness, we acknowledge our own ongoing sins and failures and accept back those who have sinned against us in the knowledge that we, too, will fail them tomorrow and will go on failing them until the Lord returns.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Assumptions and Loaded Conversations
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Why Can’t God Just Let Us Alone?
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Can A Loving God Send People to Hell?
The problem is that we do not realize the seriousness of sin.
Monday, July 14, 2014
The Snare Is Broken
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Repent or Perish
Friday, July 11, 2014
Baptism and Freedom
Thursday, July 10, 2014
‘Sola Fide’: Can It Be Enough Just To Believe?
Wednesday, July 09, 2014
Is Your Faith Boring You?
Tuesday, July 08, 2014
I See Dead People
Especially a week after the fact. They just look over, done, kaput. The End.
Monday, July 07, 2014
Sunday, July 06, 2014
Does Baptism Save?
Saturday, July 05, 2014
Friday, July 04, 2014
The Symbol Is Not the Point
Thursday, July 03, 2014
How Much Does It Have To Hurt?
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
Wikipedia vs. Baptism
Tuesday, July 01, 2014
An Islamic Court Finally Gets Something Right
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Monday, June 30, 2014
The Missing Ingredient
“In a phrase, understanding is the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows.”
Sunday, June 29, 2014
‘Leftist Utopia’ and the End
“In the course of my duties, I would often go to patients’ homes. Everyone lived in households with a shifting cast of members, rather than in families. If there was an adult male resident, he was generally a bird of passage with a residence of his own somewhere else. He came and went as his fancy took him. To ask a child who his father was had become an almost indelicate question. Sometimes the child would reply, “Do you mean my father at the moment?” Others would simply shake their heads, being unwilling to talk about the monster who had begot them and whom they wished at all costs to forget.”
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Political Correctness, the Slave Metaphor and New Testament Truth
“There are many ways to make a coherent, urgent political point without recalling the rope and the whip, the rapes and murders. Slavery, part of our shared American history, is not just a word … To use past anguish as present-day metaphor trivializes evil and shows disrespect to those who endured.”
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Greatest Love of All
Pride is a terrible thing.
I give full credit to translators of the Bible and don’t assume for a second that I know better than the least of them. But I have noticed that if translators come to their job with a predisposition to see a particular thing in a passage, as in every area of life, that’s what is seen.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Slavery in the Old Testament [Part 2]
But this case is different. The objection may well be raised that the Mosaic Law is not like ‘laws in general’ in that it came directly from God, and said exactly what he wanted it to say.
However, even the Law of Moses did not perfectly represent God’s will, preference or desire for his people. This may initially sound a bit heretical, but God was not ‘ok’ with some parts of Israel’s Law, especially when they were slavishly and literally followed rather than used as a guideline to discern a higher, more loving intent. Those who merely followed the letter of the Law doing the minimum possible would inevitably fall short of God’s real purpose.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Slavery in the Old Testament [Part 1]
“I have always wanted a slave and from what I can read in MY bible that is totally ok with God right?”
— Emily
“Hi Emily, You see God only let them keep slaves then, because at the time that was how economies worked. There was simply no other way for God to help Israel prosper, they needed to be just the same as the surrounding nations.”
— Minion68
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Living Large
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Missing Links
Friday, June 20, 2014
Everything Louder Than Everything Else
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Top 10 Ways To Argue Like A Christian
“… living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
When God Says No
But God is not like that.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
How to Fight a Smear Campaign
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Literal and Figurative
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Follow the Evidence
Friday, June 13, 2014
Clinging to Dust
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Christianity is a Crutch
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
The New New Atheism
Monday, June 09, 2014
Two Kinds of Hard Hearts
“And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.” (Mark 6:52)
Sunday, June 08, 2014
Christianity Incorporated
I just happened across a National Post article from a few years back that serves as a superb illustration of the sort of complications (“complications” being the polar opposite of the “simplicity” Paul refers to) that arise when Christians become corporatists.“But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”(2 Corinthians 11:3, NASB)
Saturday, June 07, 2014
John Calvin, Context and Kingdom Parables: “Others Are Deprived of This Grace”
Friday, June 06, 2014
Blue Bloods and Bloodlines
“Family is the most important thing in the world.” (Princess Diana)
“Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” (Lilo and Stitch)
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Atheism and Logic
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
All The Time You Need To Get Saved
Monday, June 02, 2014
Bible Study 11 — Context [Part 5]
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Sunday, June 01, 2014
Did Jesus Really Ever Claim to be God?
“Jesus was a good moral teacher. Sure, he had a special relationship with God and thought he was doing God’s work, but he never claimed to actually BE God. The idea that Jesus is God is something his disciples made up after his death”.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
The Media Dumbs Down
“The U.S. is being overrun by a wave of anti-science, anti-intellectual thinking. Has the most powerful nation on Earth lost its mind?” (from a Maclean’s article entitled “America Dumbs Down”, by Jonathon Gatehouse)
Friday, May 30, 2014
Failure to Launch
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Quite Contrary: Scripture and Mariolotry
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
God’s Sovereignty vs. Suffering
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Mysticism and Salvation
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Present Perfect
Friday, May 23, 2014
God’s Sovereignty vs. Hardened Hearts
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Irrationalization: Call No Man Father
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Eden: Take This Job and Love It
First, we considered that God is shown in Eden to be primarily a God of unfettered fellowship; that He desired to share knowledge of Himself with humanity and that humanity was unashamed in the full presence of their Creator.
Second, we considered that God revealed Himself in the first moments of time to be a God who loves to bless and wants to be known as a rewarder of those who seek Him.
The third thing of note then is this. Adam and Eve had something you and I crave: They had worthwhile work.