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I'm jumping in. I figure, why not? I've already jumped into the whole blogging thing, so one more internet trend to follow will be a piece of cake.
Right now, I've got one poscast that I'm doing for my church: Sunday at First Baptist from Greenup First Baptist church. The feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/SundayAtFirstBaptistGreenup, so go aheade and plug that into iPodder. OR you can go over to iTunes and subscribe there -- just search for the podcast name.
Later on this week (or possibly next week) I will be debuting my own personal podcast, tentatively named View from the Podcast. I say tentatively because it's a really lame name, and I'm looking for a better one. If you have an idea, email me and let me know. What I'm looking for:
June 27, 363
Though there is some arguement over the exact date (some sources say June 26), there is no mistaking the importance of this date.
The day that Julian the Apostate died in battle.
"You have conquered, O Galilean," were his dying words (again, according to many sources). Julian was not an emperor who was favorable to Christians, even though Christianity was officially recognized by Constantine years before Julian came to the throne. When he finally took over the empire, Julian was determined to restore the pagan practices of his ancestors to prominence throughout the known world.
He didn't have a lot of opposition. Things hadn't been very good since the Christians took over -- wars, famine, disease, etc. People thought that the gods had forsaken them because they allowed this new faith to flourish. So Julian's notion of getting rid of the Christians was accepted by many in the empire.
Interestingly, Julian's own hatred of Christians seems to stem from a bad experience with someone who claimed the name of Christ. A corrupt 'Christian' emperor killed Julian's family in an attempt to eliminate a threat to his throne. Julian never forgot -- and never forgave.
It's easy to look at Julian the Apostate and say that he deserved everything he got -- including his nickname. But let's play "What If ..." for a moment. What if that 'Christian' had been a true believer -- of id he was, what if he had lived according to the principles of the Christ he served? What if Julian had seen compassion from Christians, and not hatred and murder?
Julian arranged for the poor to be taken care of -- all the poor, not just those who shared his beliefs. One thing that Christians had done was turn their backs on the poor and needy who were not Christians -- though they took very good care of their own. Pagans saw this lack of concern and wanted no part of it. Julian saw it and decided that his official religion would do a better job of showing compassion to people. What if those pagan people had seen true Christian compassion?
Julian was brought up as a Christian. He rejected this faith because he saw what it wasn't doing. How often is that all we show to people? The lesson we can learn from this tragic period in the history of the Church is to never lose an opportunity to minister to those who are in need. People who are starving do not listen very well. They do not hear our words when they do not see our deeds. We must preach the word, but we lose the opportunity when we fail to meet the needs of those around us.
OK, I'm terrible. The Carnival has been up since the 29th, over at ChristWeb. Did I put a link up? No. And I'm in it this time, too!
Seriously, it's a great carnival. Head over there and read it, and add a few of these great blogs to your daily read list.
Someone is emailing people telling them they have won a Power Sellers account on Ebay.
Unfortunately, you can't WIN a Power Seller's account, you have to earn it. When you DO earn it, you automatically get the logo, etc.
Also unfortunately, they've sent the email to an address that I don't have registered with Ebay, and isn't attached to my Ebay account.
So be warned -- someone's trying to steal your Ebay information. Probably to buy one of those laptops that people are selling as scams. Wouldn't that be ironic? A scammer gets bitten by a scammer? Sounds like P-P-P-Powerbook to me!
{Incidentally, if you've never heard about the P-p-p-Powerbook thing, you HAVE to read it. There is some strong language (at least in the older copy I read), but it is without a doubt the funniest thing I"ve ever heard about. Click the link and read it.}
I have just done something that I have never done, and never wanted to do.
I deleted three comments from this blog.
I didn't delete them because they disagreed with me. The comments were rather inane, and the arguements were easy to deal with. The problem was that the email addresses that were used were invalid.
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account (berniebb1360@yahoo.com) [0] - mta277.mail.mud.yahoo.com
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:sandy_picklich@hotmail.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 10): 550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable
Thus, I have a new rule. If you leave an invalid email address, your comment will be deleted. I look at this as if you are lying to me, and I do not deal well with lying.
BTW -- if anyone wants to read the comments, let me know. I get all comments emailed to me, so I have them all in my gmail account. IF the offending posters want their comments back up, and can give me a valid email address, I will replace them.
There was still controversy after the Council at Nicea. Arianism had been defeated, but Semi-Arians (including Apollinarians and Macedonians) were still quite active. There was enough ambiguity in the Nicene Creed, they thought, to allow them to disagree with the Christology established at Nicea. The reign of Julian the Apostate allowed these groups to flourish, since the Church was unable to organize a Council to deal with their aberrant beliefs. The actions of Constantius also had a great deal to do with this flourishing of heterodoxy; his own opinions changed, and he allowed greater freedom for followers of a modified form of Arianism prior to his death.
Interestingly, 1st Constantinople is not a true ecumenical council -- it was convoked as a regional council by Theodosious, and attended by only 150 bishops, all from eastern churches. It was affirmed as ecumenical at Chalcedon in 451. The creed that was formulated is a modified form of the Nicene Creed, which is still used in the Orthodox Church.
There are four undisputed canons of this council. The first was a more explicit condemnation of Arianism and semi-Arianism. It says "the faith of the 318 fathers who assembled at Nicaea in Bithynia is not to be made void, but shall continue to be established."
The second canon is a rather interesting statement concerning church autonomy. Bishops were encouraged to confine their activities to their own churches, and not exercise ecclesiastic authority unless invited by the bishop of that area. There seems to have been some notion of local church autonomy, even in the fourth century AD.
The third canon gives the bishop of Constantinople pre-eminence after the bishop of Rome, because Constantinople is the new Rome. This canon caused problems because of the contention that it made the bishop of Constantinople equal to the bishop of Rome.
The fourth canon declared to consecration of Maximus invalid. Maximus was a Cynic philosopher who was consecrated for purely political reasons.
The last three canons have never been recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, under the assessment that they were later additions. The Orthodox Church does hold them to be legitimate.
The fifth is a recognition of "those in Antioch who confess a single Godhead of Father and Son and holy Spirit," probably a defense of Paul of Antioch.
The sixth deals with false accusations agains orthodox clergy. "There are many who are bent on confusing and overturning the good order of the church and so fabricate, out of hatred and a wish to slander, certain accusations against orthodox bishops in charge of churches. Their intention is none other than to blacken priests' reputations and to stir up trouble among peace- loving laity. For this reason the sacred synod of bishops assembled at Constantinople has decided not to admit accusers without prior examination, and not to allow everyone to bring accusations against church administrators -- but with- out excluding everyone." This is a justification of the way the council handled itself.
The final canon affirms that those who leave heresy and return to the orthodox Christian faith are to be welcomed back into the Church "when they hand in statements and anathematise every heresy which is not of the same mind as the holy, catholic and apostolic church of God." This shows the ultimate goal of the council is not to condemn but to restore.
{note: the article on this council at Wikipedia is not completely accurate.}
You'll notice that there's a new button over on the left, for Blingo.
The theory is that you use them to search, and randomly during the day, they award prizes to people. Movie tickets, iPod Shuffles, Amazon gift cards.
And Sony PSPs.
I've been using it for a while now, but never put anything up here. I am doing it now because I just won.
A Sony PSP.
Really.
Actually, you have the option to take the prize or a Visa gift card for the purchase price of the item. I can't afford PSP games right now, so I got a gift card for $249 coming to me.
The cool thing is, the person who referred me (and I don't even remember who it was now, some site I wandered onto I think) won the same prize. And they may not even know it yet.
So go sign up for Blingo. Use the link over there on the lieft, to let them know I sent you. Then go win something cool.
More from the SBC Bloggers aggregator this time, picking up where I left off.
Joe Kennedy, who is Live... from New Orleans, has been interacting with a reader named Felipe concerning Catholics and Evangelicals. Tow posts so far, so read here first, then here for part 2.
Don at Locusts and Wild Honey has been posting the newest resolutions that were passed by the Southern Baptist Convention this year in Nashville. Of particular interest is the before and after look at the Resolution on Educating Children.
Aaron at Maranatha offers his comments on A Generous Orthodoxy. Agree or not, he's done a great deal of study and put a lot of thought into this one.
Justin at Marvelous Light is preparing for a missions trip (actually, by now he's gone!).
Matt at Matthewhall.net is offering some theological thought on providence and suffering. Read Matt -- he doesn't blog daily anymore (of course, he's a new Dad, so he's got more important things to do), but when he DOES blog, it's always worth reading. He was one of the first people I put on my daily-read list.
That's it for today -- I'll have more of this ever-expanding list of Southern Baptist bloggers later on this week. If you ARE a Southern Baptist blogger, or know someone who is, tell them about the aggregator, and tell them they need to let me know so I can add them. I THOUGHT about just adding every Southern Baptist blog I found, but there are some people who don't want to be a part of a group (for whatever reason), so I always ask if they want to be included. Unfortunately, I can't visit every SBC blog, so I'm asking for help. Thanks!!
I opened up my RSS reader this morning and saw a headline that at first made me mad. Tim Challies wrote about "Southern Baptists - An Unregenerate Denomination" and I admit that I was ready to charge forth.
Then I read what he wrote, and realized that he was right.
Of course, Tim isn't the only one who has noticed this. Jim Elliff has written an article of the same name (which is where Tim started with his piece), and it's been noted by Southern Baptists that we're not doing our job when it comes to committed, regenerate church membership (I'm thinking of Thom Rainer's article in particular, which I've commented on before here.
There's a serious problem among our churches. We are so driven to baptise a million that I worry we're not making sure that the person is a proper candidate for baptism. We preach believers baptism, but do we do everything we can to make sure that the candidate for baptism is, in fact, a believer? There are unsaved people sitting in pews every Sunday morning who think they're going to heaven because they've been dunked, and we need to make sure it stops.
There are also people who are members of our churches who are dead weight -- until something important comes up at a business meeting. THEN they show up, and they ALWAYS have something to say about the way the church should be run. Of course, if they really cared, they'd BE THERE on Sundays and Wednesdays.
We need to purge our membership rolls of the dead weight. We need to make sure that new members aren't coming to simply fill a pew. And we need to make sure our members are, in fact, born again. How can we expect to reach the world for Christ when we can't even reach our own congregations?
By now everyone knows about this one. The tubes in London have been bombed. A bus has been blown up. And this time, it's not the IRA.
We're under attack. Not "we" as in the United States. "We" as in Western society. Western civilization. Everything that we believe as a society is under attack, and the people doing the attacking don't care who they hurt or what they have to do.
A list of links to check out:{Updated as of 10PM Thursday}
One thing that blogging has done for me -- it's brought international events into a different perspective. Two years ago, the bombings in London would have outraged me, but from a purely "how dare they kill innocent people" point of view. Now, I know people in London. My first thoughts were about two bloggers I know who are in London right now, and the readers I have in London (I usually get 3 or 4 hits daily from London). The world is, indeed, a much smaller place.
Christians throughout the blogosphere have called for a day of fasting and prayer for our leaders, and for revival among God's people on July 11, 2005. Please participate with us. History shows that fervent, corporate prayer is the one sure cause of revival among God's people -- and that revival has a habit of extending throughout the world.
I've always wondered -- when a Jewish man or woman testifies in court, do they swear on the Christian Bible? What about a Muslim? And if they do -- does it really mean anything? After all, they are swearing on a book whose contents they largely (if not completely) disagree with.
And what about atheists? They're doing the equivalent of swearing on a copy of Mother Goose to us -- they're swearing on a book they consider to be a work of complete fiction.
In a society where Christians, while in a slight majority according to the polls, are not close to the only spiritual/philosophical group, why do we make everyone who testifies in court swear on the good old KJV?
There's a group in Guilford County, North Carolina who are asking the same question. They're petitioning the courts to use various religious texts in the swearing-in process.
The group - made up of more than 20 religious leaders from the area, including those of Christian, Jewish and Buddhist faiths - sent a letter Tuesday to Guilford Superior Court Judge W. Douglas Albright, who has said an oath on the Quran is not lawful.This should be a no-brainer, folks. Those who are giving sworn testimony should do so on a book they consider holy -- whether that's the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran, or The Fountainhead."In North Carolina, we continue to be people who take our religious beliefs and practices very seriously. But we no longer live in the Bible Belt. Today, we live in the Bible-Talmud-Qur'an-Veda-Dhammapada-Guru Granth Sahib-Kitabiiqan Belt," the letter states.
And the local judge doesn't get it.
Albright, who sets policy for Guilford County's nine Superior Court courtrooms, has said that an oath on the Quran is not a lawful oath under state law, which refers to using the "Holy Scriptures."But it doesn't say whose. That's the point the group is trying to make.
Part 3 of Total Truth focuses on a topic that has generated a lot of discussion and controversy in recent years, and is a main part of Pearcey's thesis -- the anti-intellectualism of evangelical Christianity. Unfortunately, it's also the section of the book I had the most trouble with.
In her effort to show the First and Second Great Awakenings as a triumph of poulist religion of scholasticism, Pearcey ignores the scholarly traditions of the Baptist and Methodist denominations. Pearcey even ignores her own statistics at one point in asserting that the Baptists experienced "striking growth" along with the Methodists. 17% of Americans were baptists in 1776, compared to 20.5% in 1850 -- not what I would call "striking growth." Pearcey ignores the scholarly tradition of Baptist theologians like John Gill, Andrew Fuller, John L. Dagg, and Charles Spurgeon, as well as the Princeton trained James P. Boyce, who helped found the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and served as its first president until 1888. She focuses on the populist elements in the Baptist movement, choosing to only focus on the scholarly Presbyterians in a subsequent chapter. Scholarly Baptists get no mention at all -- it would have contradicted part of the thesis concerning the Great Awakenings.
This neglect is unfortunate, because Pearcey has some excellent points to make. The church in general prior to the Great Awakenings was cold and impersonal, caring little for evangelism. Pearcey recognizes the importance of the populists in awakening American spirituality even as she laments their rejection of the academy. She does not explore closely enough the failings of the academy that made them reject it, just that in rejecting it they effectively threw the baby out with the bathwater.
Pearcey's chapter on the role of women in the culture war is fascinating, and I'm sure it disappointed many of her critics to read her appraisal (and approval) of the expansive role women had prior to the Industrial Revolution. She uses this to illustrate how matters of virtue and morality became the domain of women (the temperence movement, for example) while matters of fact (science, business, etc.) became the domain of men. Virtue and spirituality became seen as effeminate, which Pearcey sees as leading to the "feminization of the Church." This is shown as yet another example of the split that Pearcey sees in modern philosophy -- the separation of "fact" and "faith" that she feels is a false dichotomy.
Summary:
This book is not designed for non-Christians. I think this has been the biggest cause of poor reviews; the reviewers cannot relate to the target audience. It is not an anti-evolution book, though that theme is touched on. It is a book exhorting Christians to live a consistent life, and to realize that their faith is rational and a viable alternative to the dominant naturalistic worldview. It makes Christians aware of the presuppositions that many people have regarding faith and science, and encourages us to be aware of our own prejudices. And, finally, it is a rallying call for Chrisitans to reclaim our intellectual heritage.
It is a book whose time has come.
My Mom's birthday is today.
She lives in Pensacola, Florida, about a mile from NAS Pensacola.
Guess what SHE'S getting for her birthday?
And she just finished fixing everything from Ivan about a week or so ago. Happy birthday, Mom.
This is all that's on my mind today, so I figure I'll blog about it. Maybe I'll feel better.
Right now it looks like Dennis has come ashore about 30-40 miles from Mom's house. She's inland with some good friends of ours (their kids have almost adopted my Mom as a third grandmother) so she's with people who care about her, and who she cares about.
My biggest worry is that there is so much debris still left over from Ivan that hasn't been picked up yet. The county said that the state was supposed to clear it away, but the state said it was the county's job -- end result was that it didn't get done. Piles and piles of potential projectiles to fly through windows and crash through roofs.
But the house can be fixed. Mom is safe, and that's what matters.
Pray for the people in Fort Walton, Navarre, and points east. They are getting a bit more of this storm than they expected, so they may not be as prepared as they should be.
I never know how to pray in a hurricane. Al Mohler had a great post about this -- if the storm goes a different direction, people still are affected -- it's just not "us."
So all we can do is pray that the damage isn't severe, that our loved ones are safe, and that things turn out for the best. And that is what happened today.
While formidable, Hurricane Dennis did not pack the punch that was expected, and certainly did not deliver the damage dealt by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004.There are still a LOT of people without power, and there is a lot of damaged property, but Dennis wasn't nearly as bad as advertized.The estimated 76,000 to 100,000 residents who evacuated their homes should stay away for two days while so utility and road crews can continue their work and gasoline supplies can be restored, Escambia County officials said Sunday night.
Also, Escambia County and City of Pensacola officials warned residents to stay inside while utility and road crews worked to repair damage from the storm.
At a 6 p.m. press briefing, Escambia County Administrator George
Touart said the hardest-hit area of the county was Pensacola Beach, where a tangled mess of downed power lines blocked access east and west of the business core.Nonetheless, Touart planned to send engineers tonight to inspect the Bob Sikes Bridge and road crews in the morning to clear the way.
Electricity, water and sewer service will not be available, but he
hopes to open the beach to residents some time Monday.Perdido Key was unscathed largely and reopened once tropical storm force winds died down. (from the Pensacola News Journal)
The latest Best of Me Symphony is up at The Owner's Manual. Head over there and check out the posts --- some great reading there.
Cruising through the SBC Aggregator, as I do pretty much daily, I found this post by Marty Duren. He sets out pretty clearly what he wants to accomplish, and what he doesn't want to accomplish, with his blog.
Interesting that this should come up right now. Over at Blogcritics, we've had a bit of an uproar about a post that was borderline libelous (in some peoples' opinions) concerning an actor and his girlfriend. I can't comment on it, because I have only read the edited version of the post (and the comment storm that followed), but I DO know that it caused the editorial staff at BC to do some thinking about the fine line separating free speech and irresponsible journalism. And there has been talk around the internet about weblogs as online diaries, and what could happen in another ten or so years with those "innermost thoughts" that were put out for public consumption.
I like Marty's list. From what I've read of his blog, he does an excellent job, and I wish I had found his blog sooner. And he's inspired me to try and write my own "purpose statement."
1. My primary goal is to educate. My pet peeve is Christians who have decided that logic and reason are the enemy, and have therefor abandoned all attempts at understanding anything. God is not the author of confusion. I don't believe that He would ever leave His creation without the capacity to understand Him. We do that through learning and study. We have a rich intellectual history, and we've all but abandoned it because of what other people have said about us.
2. I also want to challenge peoples thinking. I want to change what the perception of evangelical Christian is to many people -- for the better.
3. I want to hold up a mirror to Christian society. When we do something dumb, I want to show how dumb it was, NOT to bash people, but so that we can learn from our mistakes.
4. I want to learn. I end up learning about a LOT of things just by writing a blog post about them. I learn more when people comment.
There's my four. I'm not going to say what I don't want to do, since that will only jinx me. I WILL steal one of Marty's ideas and say that I need to be careful with humor, because I tend to be rather sarcastic. It becomes more obvious when you hear me than when you read what I say, so I may keep the humor to the podcast (whenever I get it started -- more on that later on).
And a new toy for me to play with.
Over on the right side, at the very top, you will find a new section heading -- Podcasts. And below it, you can find buttons linking to podcasts that I have created. OK, so only one right now -- the podcast from my church. Click on the button, and you get a popup player that will let you listen to any of the broadcasts that have been made so far.
Soon, you can listen to the View from the Pew Radio podcast, which I am hoping to be able to do weekly (as I think I've mentioned before). It's a lot tougher to do than just doing an intro and outro for the Sunday sermon at your church, so I'm taking my time to make sure it's done well.
For those of you who have Podcasts, check out PupuPlayer v2. It's a free script (no download required) that lets you allow people to play your feed at your site. It SHOULD also show up on any subscription-tracking thing you might have (like Feedburner, which I use), so you can tell who is listening where. If I find out it doesn't, I'll let you know.
THe NHL lockout that has been the bane of my existance for the past 10 months is over. If it's the same deal that has been rumored, the players ended up getting a worse deal than they would have at the beginning, so it looks like the owners won.
Now the NHL has to face losing their broadcasting deal with ESPN as well as regaining the trust of its fans. I know more than a few fans who aren't really interested in going to another hockey game.
Me? Hockey, golf, and auto racing are the only sports I really follow. I'll watch hockey when it comes back to TV, and if I can afford to go to a game, I will (doubtful right now). And I may even laugh at the players who, if what I've heard is true, took a worse deal than they started out with, and lost a season of play to boot.
How we can, as Christian bloggers, begin to influence the wider culture rather than simply passing links around among the 4500 who are part of the Blogdom of God?I'm getting a lot of good posting fodder by reading Tim Challies' blog. How can we influence the wider blogosphere? How do we get out of the Christian ghetto? I think we've been asking this question for a LONG time, and there aren't any easy answers.
I think the first thing we need to do is to get out there and interact with others. NOT just the atheist, anti-Christian blogs (though that's a good idea), but the normal, regular blogs. We DO have interests outside of religion, don't we? Whether it's webcomics, or surfing, or science fiction, or basket weaving -- there are blogs out there where these things are discussed. Get involved in the discussion, and talk about these things on our blogs. Even if you have a blog devoted to theology, you can inject some of your own personality into it as well.
Get involved in carnivals. Not just the Christian carnival (though it's a great one!), but the Bonfire of the Vanities, the Best of Me Symphony, etc. Even the Carnival of Recipes and the Carnival of Kids. Get involved and gain exposure -- but make sure you have something to say.
Blogexplosion. I know a lot of you are laughing at this one, but I have gained a few readers from this -- and have had some great discussions with people who would never have visited the blog otherwise.
In short, we need to be visible, and visible in places where people are looking for blogs to read. Most blog search engines divide blogs into categories -- get yourself listed in a couple different catefories. Sports, education, politics, etc. We don't do this enough.
And we need to have something worth reading when they get here. I've seen blogs that have all the buttons, are in all the directories and search engines, and have nothing to say. There is a potential audience out there, but they won't stay if we bore them to tears. Blogs are built on content (like you haven't figured THAT out yet), so give them content that will make them come back.
Congrats to Nancy Pearcey, who has just been awarded the ECPA's Gold Medallion Award for best book in the category of “Christianity and Society” for her book Total Truth. I know that I enjoyed reading the book, and I would encourage others to read it, and take it's message to heart -- Christians need to live a consistent life, and need to realize that Christianity is a viable, rational worldview.
The press release for this announcement is below:
Wednesday, July 13, 2005 -- As America continues its heated debates on the role of religion in public life, Nancy Pearcey’s highly acclaimed book TOTAL TRUTH: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity (Crossway) has won the 2005 ECPA Gold Medallion Award for best book in the category of “Christianity and Society.”
Pearcey, a former agnostic, has been heralded as "one of the few female intellectuals in evangelicalism" (The Evangelical Outpost). She is also a musician and a homeschooling mother. The prestigious award was announced at a celebration held in Denver, Colorado, on Monday, July 11, 2005. The ECPA reports that more than “1,000 publishers, retailers, authors, and industry colleagues” attended the evening’s festivities.
“There is much to be thankful for in receiving this award,” Pearcey said. “It is a positive sign that a ‘rock-the-boat’ book like TOTAL TRUTH could find a base of support among the grassroots of evangelical publishing.”
“The book rocks secular boats because it argues that God is a public figure," Pearcey explained. "It shows why secularists cannot simply relegate religion to the private realm of faith and feelings, which is the most common way of stripping Christianity of its power to challenge and redeem the whole of culture."
“But the book may also rock some evangelical boats," Pearcey said, "because it challenges a tendency to allow essentially secular principles to shape the way we do business in Christian circles, which hurts many people who are seeking authentic relationships and answers to life’s questions.”
Pearcey, who became a Christian at L'Abri Fellowship in the early 1970s, said, “I am thankful to Francis and Edith Schaeffer, who opened the door to doing this kind of worldview analysis."
Celebrating the news about TOTAL TRUTH are voices from the U.S. and Europe:
• “Delighted to hear about the Gold Medallion. Nancy's book TOTAL TRUTH is one of our top books here in Christian Heritage-Cambridge.”
--RANALD MACAULAY
Director, Christian Heritage-Cambridge
son-in-law of Francis and Edith Schaeffer
Cambridge, England
.
• TOTAL TRUTH is the “most important single book to have come out of the U.S.A. in recent years because it tackles the root-level misunderstandings which stop people from seeing that the message of Jesus brought, and still brings, individual liberties, social transformation, political freedom, and scientific, technological and economic progress.”
-- Prof. PRABHU GUPTARA
Chairman, Trinity Forum-Europe
Executive Director at Wolfsberg (subsidiary of UBS)
Zurich, Switzerland
• Congratulations to [editor-husband Rick] and Nancy!”
-- DAVID LIMBAUGH
author, syndicated columnist
Cape Girardeau, Mo.
• “Nancy Pearcey has performed an important service to evangelicals in TOTAL TRUTH, and her Gold Medallion Award testifies that her kind is not yet extinct.”
-- CAL THOMAS
author, syndicated columnist
Washington, D.C., area
Nancy Pearcey is the Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar at the World Journalism Institute, where she teaches a worldview course based on the study guide edition of TOTAL TRUTH. After earning an M.A. from Covenant Theological Seminary, she pursued further graduate work in philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. Since 1977, she has been a pioneering thinker and writer on the interface between worldview and contemporary issues, such as modern science, and she is currently a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute.
I'm going to throw this into the reviews category, but it isn't really.
Everybody else is talking about the Harry Potter book. I'm not reading it. NOT because I think it's Satanic or will make me run around att the full moon naked or something. I'm just not interested in it. My wife is reading the series: she reads one every year at the beach (which is next week). This year she is reading book 4. So far, she hasn't started casting spells or riding broomsticks, so I think we're safe.
I figured since everyone else is talking about reading Harry Potter, I'll talk about all the OTHER things I'm reading.
Well, there you have it. My beach reading list. Every year I finish several books while we're down there, and this year will be no exception. Two rounds of golf, a day or two on the beach, and some quality book time. THAT'S what I call a vacation.
The only problem is that I don't know if I'll have internet access while we're gone. The power supply is gone on the old laptop, and a new one will run at LEAST $60 (IF the place still has them in stock; this laptop is nine years old). I'll hit the public library and find out if it's really public, and if so I'll post a little bit from there. Don't expect much, though -- it's a vacation, after all.
The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation." And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side. (Mark 8:11-13 ESV)Short passage today, but one that has a lot of meaning for us today.
We all want a sign. We want proof. The Pharisees were no different -- they wanted to see some proof.
The problem was, they had all the proof that they needed right in front of them. Healings and miracles -- Jesus had done many, and the Pharisees had heard of them, or seen the results. The knew what Jesus could do, and yet they still wanted proof.
It would have been really easy for Jesus to give them that proof. With a snap of His fingers, He could have given them more proof than they could handle. But He didn't.
It's easy to get tangled up in proof. We like to prove the Bible is true. We like to prove that Christ rose from the dead. We want to prove our faith is valid and real. But now, just as in Christ's day, the proof should be apparant to anyone who interacts with us.
My proof of the ressurection needs to be my own life. If Christ lives, and He lives in me, then there should be a difference. If the Bible is true, and is more than just a book, then it should have an obvious impact on my life.
But what about the people who want more proof? Jesus knew that the Pharisees wouldn't believe, no matter how much proof they were presented with. Many who are demanding proof are just the same -- they don't want to believe, so they try to rationalize their unbelief. They won't accept proof, because to them there can be none. Without the moving of the Holy Spirit in their life, they will not recognize the truth of the gospel.
So what do we do? We have a responsibility to show that Christianity is a rational faith, but we also have to be aware that it is only through the working of the Holy Spirit that people come to Christ. We need to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, to those who ask. We resond to those who are honestly seeking Christ. THAT'S the tricky part.
We can't know who is sincere and who isn't. We need to respond the same to everyone, but NOT relying on our proofs to convince them of the truth of the gospel. We rely on the Holy Spirit to convict them, and draw them to the Father.
"From July 1998 through the end of 2003, PETA killed over 10,000 dogs, cats and other 'companion animals' – at its Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters. That's more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to death over 85 percent of the animals it took in during 2003 alone. And its angel-of-death pattern shows no sign of changing."Five a day. I don't eat that many animals a day, but PETA thinks I'M the one being cruel?
Of course, PETA has an answer, if you ask them. (PETA's response in italics)
Year Received† Adopted Killed Transferred % Killed % Adopted 2004 2,640 361 1,911 1 86.3 13.7 2003 2,224 312 1,911 1 85.9 14.0 2002 2,680 382 2,298 2 85.7 14.3 2001 2,685 703 1,944 14 72.4 26.2 2000 2,684 624 2,029 28 75.6 23.2 1999 1,805 386 1,328 91 73.6 21.4 * 1998 943 133 685 125 72.6 14.1 Total 15,661 2,901 12,473 262 79.6 18.5
* figures represent the second half of 1998 only
† other than spay/neuter animals
» skeptical? click here to see the proof
"[M]ost of the animals we receive are broken beings for whom euthanasia is, without a doubt, the most humane option."PetaKillsAnimals quotes an SPCA director thuslyPETA kills 85 percent of the animals it takes in, and finds adoptive homes for just 14 percent. By contrast, the Norfolk SPCA, whose shelter is located less than 4 miles from PETA's headquarters, found adoptive homes for 73 percent of its animals in 2003. It’s rather hard to believe that the animals entrusted to PETA are any more likely to be “broken beings.”
I often receive phone calls from frantic people who have surrendered their pets to PETA with the understanding that PETA will "find them a good home." Many of them are led to believe that the animals will be taken to a nearby shelter. Little do they know that the pets are killed in the PETA van before they even pull away from the pet owner's home … PETA refuses to surrender animals they obtain to area shelters for rehoming. If only the celebrity "deep-pocket" donors on the west coast knew that their donations were going to kill adoptable cats and dogs here in Norfolk.
I admit, I don't like PETA. They are, in a word, nuts. But I never thought they were hypocritical nuts. The word needs to get out about this.
I don't know that I'll be posting at all, since I don't know if I'll have internet access while we're away. SO I will leave you with this picture:
Click on it for a larger picture. It's one of the few from last year's vacation that doesn't make me look like a beached whale.
{edit -- I've changed the date on this one so it will stay at the top of the page until I get back. Sorry for those of you who get the RSS subscription if this duplicates the post ...}
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