Weekend Walkabout, December 20, 2008
December 20, 2008
26 posts from the week that escaped mention (almost!):
“All” Always Means ALL. Right? - Phil Johnson
A Bad Sign - The Sacred Sandwich
CCM Magazine’s Top Ten Artist Blogs of 2008 (HT: Worship.com)
Don’t Waste Your Sexuality - Josh Harris
The Elvis-Beatles Relativity Fallacy - Rod Dreher
“Free” Christian music downloads from CompassionArt - Gospel Soundcheck
Glorifying God in Our Christmas Shopping - Tony Reinke
“Does my gift serve the soul of the recipient?”
How Hellish is ‘Time Out’? - Russell Moore
If Only it Were That Clear - Mark D. Roberts
Jonestown and the Reformed Movement - R. Scott Clark
“As weird and impossible as Jonestown seems today, what happened to them and what they did to themselves, is not utterly unrelated to ideas, causes, and personalities in the Reformed movement over the last three decades.”
Killing is My Business, and Business is Good - Paul Manata
Lewis’s Famous Essay on Bulverism (HT: Victor Reppert)
Martin Luther’s Christmas Book - Between Two Worlds
No Good Reason - Cerulean Sanctum
“In sorting through this clothing, the realization that I throw away just about nothing hit home.”
Online Community…Does it exist? YES! But I Think You Are Asking the Wrong Question - Rhett Smith
Phillips Daylight Window Concept Presentation - Joshua Sowin
Q+A :: How many U.S. churches exist? - Church Relevance
Reflections from a Church Pianist - Amy Scott
“When I have a brain freeze at a bad time, I’ve got a special look for the other musicians that asks, ‘What are you people thinking, man?’”
Six Christmas Poems - Marcus Goodyear
Tim Challies Day - Justin Taylor
Unpacking forgiveness in real life - Dan Phillips
Volition: A Short Film - Jonathan Ignacio
“It is a fifteen minute film focusing on three of the worst atrocities of human rights this world has faced.”
Why read through Calvin’s Institutes in 2009? - Ligon Duncan
Xmas Giveaway - Trevin Wax
“For the next ten days (Dec. 15-25), you have the opportunity to register to win all ten of my favorite books this year. Plus, an ESV Study Bible. That’s $260 worth of books!”
You Should Subscribe - Green Baggins
Zeitgeist as Agent? - Pseudo-Polymath
“Consider … for a moment the intelligent ant colony … from the ant’s perspective … here with man as ant. “
Are you dreaming?
December 1, 2008
Apparently there are ways to tell if you’re awake or dreaming. Differences between the two states are listed at LucidWiki (HT: Victor Reppert).
Nietzsche and conscience
December 1, 2008
At The Scriptorium, Fred Sanders discusses the contempt that philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche poured upon Christianity and the pangs of conscience:
“Raised as a Christian, he embraced the faith at first, but then rejected it about as thoroughly as anybody ever did. He began by writing love poems to Jesus and ended by calling for the coming of the Antichrist. He lived abstemiously but identified himself with the ancient god of drunken revelry, Dionysus. His life ended with a descent into madness and over a decade of vegetative stupor, and everybody from Hitler to Leopold and Loeb claimed they got their big ideas from his bombastic writings. This is strong stuff!”
Ben Witherington on “The Architecture of the Post-modern Mind” (update)
November 1, 2008
Read part one:
“What … is post-modernity? Post-modernity, sometimes called After-Modernity neither involves a flight from reason back into faith, nor a rejection of reason in favor of faith, but rather an attempt to get beyond the impasse.”
“The setting in which the teacher in the 21rst century finds herself or himself is one in which increasingly the audience is composed of persons primarily geared to and triggered by visual stimuli. …”
Part three. (update 10/31)
“Post-modern spirituality is many things (indeed it can be called a many splintered thing) including the following at various times and to various degrees: …”
A world without suffering: impossible concept?
October 29, 2008
Christian columnist and commentator Frederica Mathewes-Green challenges readers to envision such a world:
“Can you imagine a world where there is no child abuse? … How would you stop child abuse entirely? Would you make it so that an angry parent could not think of any way to hurt a child? …”
(HT: Rod Dreher)
Atheist PR
October 24, 2008
According to a recent BBC story (HT: Charles Lehardy), outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins is supporting a new ad campaign underwritten by the British Humanist Association, which will place large banners with the message, There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. on many London buses. Says Dawkins:
“Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side. … This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion.”
On a related note, see the following two posts by James Anderson (a soon-to-be faculty at RTS) detailing Dawkins’ logical incompetence:
Talking to postmoderns
October 14, 2008
C. Michael Patton shares a strategy for engaging with someone of a postmodern mindset, using an illustration taken from Millard Erickson’s Postmodernizing the Faith:
“Horse=postmodern
Water=the Gospel
Rope=method of deliveryQuestion: How do we lead a postmodern horse to water?”
Apostle Paul believed in bodily afterlife
October 7, 2008
On the Triablogue, Steve Hays takes exception to Richard Carrier’s assertion that Paul was influenced by the philosophy of Philo, who believed that after people die they assume an ethereal existence.
FYI
Philo of Alexandria (c.30 BC–cAD 45) was a Greek-speaking Jewish philosopher who influenced several early Christian thinkers. His own thought was heavily influenced by that of Plato.
