Wednesday, September 02, 2015

College / University Survival Guide [Part 2]

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

College / University Survival Guide [Part 1]

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Monday, August 31, 2015

What Else Would You Expect?

You’re thinking about Christianity.

Perhaps you’re intellectually dissatisfied with the pat answers the world offers to questions of meaning and truth. Perhaps you’ve been impressed by a neighbor, friend or co-worker who says she loves Jesus Christ and is anything but a cliché about her faith. Perhaps … well, it doesn’t really matter what the reason is, does it?

But if you’re thinking it may be worth examining the Bible more carefully, what might you expect to find there?

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Another Exercise in Subjectivity

I just read an extimony.

An extimony, I am reliably informed, is sort of an anti-testimony. It’s the story of how a person un-converted from Christianity, becoming an atheist, agnostic, freethinker or Pastafarian, depending on their particular circumstances and bent.

Short version: I was not overly impressed with the arguments of the gentleman who wrote this one.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Let’s Not Make a Habit of It

What does “sin” mean to you? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I use the word?

Is it something that you’ve done recently? Maybe it’s something that has been done to you. Or is it some remote, vile and peculiar thing that you’ve never engaged in personally but would like to see eradicated from society?

It seems to me that the Lord never dealt with sin as an abstraction. He never addressed the subject in a merely theoretical way. At the well in Sychar he told a Samaritan woman, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband”. 

That’s pretty specific.

Friday, August 28, 2015

Thursday, August 27, 2015

The Dangerous Faith

Other than while acting in the service of governments, real Christians don’t generally use guns, knives or bombs on our fellow men. We’re not looking to conquer the world by force of arms. Instead, we seek to persuade men and women of the truth of what we believe.

In theory, persuasion is a fairly inoffensive process compared to, say, armed invasion. Still, some people respond to the Christian faith with outright hostility. Others are more laid back, a subject we touched on in a post a few days ago.

But as Immanuel Can notes in the comments, our dealings with mellow agnostics are just as much “warfare” as when we engage with hostiles, and may be perceived as threatening even when the message is graciously and lovingly delivered.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Does the Bible Need a Disclaimer?

Perhaps a little something like this?
The following ultra-litigation-conscious, politically correct disclaimer comes from the first page of a current reprint of G.K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man on my bookshelf:

“This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race have changed before allowing them to read this classic work.”

I had to laugh out loud at the naivete of anyone worried about modern children reading Chesterton. The publishers are, regrettably, quite safe from legal repercussions on that front.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The Persecution Complex

Rachel Held Evans, what would I do without you?

The redoubtable (and frequently doubtable) Ms Evans would like believers to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, and to stop feeding Christian paranoia about looming government persecution. Further, we ought to do it “for the sake of the gospel”.

(That “for the sake of the gospel” is delivered with all the sincerity of the progressive’s “It’s for the CHILDREN!”, I suspect, but let’s let Rachel carry on.)

Monday, August 24, 2015

Don’t Bury the Lede

In newspaperese, a “lede” (or sometimes “lead”) is the introductory section of a news item. Its purpose is to entice the reader to continue on, enjoying the rest of the story.

Thus to “bury” a lede is to begin a story with details of secondary importance while postponing more essential information.

There’s a video up on the YouTube website that was posted back in May. It shows camera phone footage of a middle-aged, nerdy-looking evangelical doing some street preaching on the campus of Arizona State University. He is holding a sign that appears to read something like “Warning: Homosexuals, etc. will burn in hell”. The preacher is abruptly assaulted by a crazed student who, along with many profanities, shrieks out, “You call yourselves Christians!”

The particular evangelistic technique that provokes this outburst is what I call “burying the lede”. Among other things.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

What Do We Do About the “Live and Let Live” Crowd?

There are people who just plain don’t want to hear it.

The message of the gospel, that is. They think they know what you’re going to say, they’ve heard it all before, and they’ll thank you not to start.

Some of them are outright hostile. They’ve looked around, read a few things, talked to a few people, and they are as satisfied as it’s possible to be (until facing imminent death, when all theories about existence meet their acid test) that they have an answer for life and meaning that does not include Jesus Christ. Any attempt to persuade them to change their mind is exceedingly unwelcome.

So be it. The few brave souls among us willing to intellectually debate them are welcome to do so.

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Recommend-a-blog (12)

I don’t know enough about the Intelligent Design movement to recommend this site unreservedly. I’ve seen ID regularly and virulently thrashed in the scientific community; seen its proponents and exponents referred to as “IDiots” and worse.

Still, Denyse O’Leary’s recent article on horizontal gene transfer at Evolution News is not some easily-discredited Christian science fantasy. It is backed by secular science (including MIT) and well worth a glance for anyone interested in the subject of origins.

Basically, it gives Darwin’s evolutionary mechanism a pretty hard time.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Too Hot to Handle: How We Live and What We Believe

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

A Fulfillment That Isn’t

God doesn’t always work exactly the same way.

Now he is consistent. He does not change his nature from one day to the next. His character is immutable. But he is also endlessly creative, as the world around us and the cosmos well demonstrate.

So when we study the Old Testament prophets we should not be surprised to find that the Lord uses consistent, repeated themes throughout history. It is in his nature. We should also not be surprised at the occasional unexpected and creative twist. That also has ample precedent.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Would You Sign This?

Oh, sorry. I mean one of these here:

MEMBERSHIP COMMITMENT

I couldn’t.

Sign, or you’re not a “member”. Even if you do sign, that’s only Step 1. There’s a “Procedure for Membership” to which each candidate for “membership” (as this church defines it) must submit themselves, including having their name posted at church or placed in the church bulletin for two weeks, after which “those who remain as candidates will be welcomed into membership”.

Those who don’t make it presumably remain outside the camp.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Be Careful What You Wish For

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Monday, August 17, 2015

When Analogies Fail

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Quote of the Day (7)

Idolatry is fundamentally the worship of self.

When we think of the ancients grovelling before groves and altars, we may be inclined to envision them as essentially religious people with errant theology. That is easier to do when we picture pagans with no knowledge of the true God beyond that which they might intuit from nature and the cosmos.

But then how do we explain the nation of Israel after the exodus?

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Recommend-a-blog (11)

For a regular newsletter, this is grim stuff, no getting around it. It’s not light Sunday afternoon reading before tea.

Which, given the subject matter, is probably what we should expect.

Professing Christians throughout Asia and the Middle East are dying for their faith daily and the Gatestone Institute has the details, if you want them. Many, perhaps most, are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Too Hot to Handle: Globalism and Censorship

The most recent version of this post is available here.