July 30, 2009
The Altar: Not the Finish Line
Boundless has published a new essay I wrote called The Altar: Not the Finish Line. The opening:
I am convinced that for most men, a godly wife will bring blessings that nothing else can. But those blessings are not secured without hard work. I'm talking about the inevitable adjustments which all successful marriages require.Here's the rest.Marriage is not about two single people moving into one house but otherwise continuing to live their lives as before. Marriage is about the complete unification of two very different individuals — two sinners who, no matter how strong their attraction to one another, no matter how strong their Christian commitment, will get on one another's nerves in the years to come in ways no other person will.
Survival depends on making adjustments — changes, compromises, sacrifices. But here's the thing, guys: The more you are aware that adjustments must be made, that you will need to be flexible, the easier it will be to move quickly to compromise and together define how your new family will operate. That's the good news. The bad news is that the more rigid you are, the more you fight for things to be exactly as you always expected them to be, the more work it will be to break bad habits and heal relational damage.
July 26, 2009
The Snake Oil of Obama's Health Care Plan
The editors of the National Review write a helpful essay, dissecting President Obama's Wednesday night press conference (which seems to have mercifully misfired):
But in the end, the president does not in fact seem capable of persuading the public that he and congressional Democrats have found the magic cure-all for our health-care ills. Increasingly, the American people aren’t buying what Obama is selling. Support for his approach to health care has begun to fall below 50 percent in recent polls, as worries about cost, harming the quality and availability of health care, displacing millions who are satisfied with their insurance, increasing the tax burden on employers in the midst of a recession, and creating an enormous new entitlement are adding up.But also discussing what comes next, and offering suggestions. Their conclusion:
The next few weeks are clearly crucial to the fate of these misbegotten plans. Obamacare is in trouble, but it is by no means down for the count. The Democrats control both houses of Congress quite comfortably and are keen to avoid embarrassing their new president or appearing feckless and divided. They are trying to rush a bill through in the hope that no one pays too much attention to the details and that they can claim victory before the smoke has cleared.Read the whole thing.But the politics of health care has clearly changed for the better in the past month. Passage of an Obama-style plan is now by no means inevitable, and the more time passes the greater the obstacles to passage appear. Republicans should make it clear that they do not intend to abet the approach the Democrats are contemplating, and that better options are available which would harness consumer choice to control costs and therefore to broaden access to health insurance.
President Obama and the Democrats have given Washington Republicans the perfect opportunity to illustrate for the public what it means to stand for fiscal responsibility, economic growth, individual liberty, and free markets, and how that combination can also point the way to creative and constructive policy solutions. The public is growing wary of the Democrats’ approach and eager to be shown a better way. Republicans should oblige: Stop Obamacare, and make the case for conservative health-care reform.
HT: Jeff Mooney
Obama, Professor Gates, and Sergeant Crowley
Interesting perspective from John Hinderaker at The Power Line. Upshot:
"The conversation that Obama intends to have with Gates and Crowley over a beer could get a little tense if Gates (and Obama?) think they are working on the issue of racial profiling, while Crowley thinks they are working on the issue of privileged people with connections in high places acting abusively toward police officers who are trying to do their jobs."
Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?
Mark Gali, writing for Christianity Today, explores how an individualistic worldview compromises the Christian witness on the issue of heterosexual marriage. He makes many of the points that I've raised here (see my posts citing Maggie Gallagher) and in With One Voice, citing folks like David Blankenhorn (particularly on the societal implications of marriage). The article is also a good, brief overview of the history of the legal battles in the USA on this matter.
Excerpts of Gali's article:
"While stopping short of abortion, we have not given much thought to our easy acceptance of artificial contraception. I’m not arguing for or against contraception here, only pointing to the reality that contraception has separated sex from procreation. That, in turn, has prompted most couples, evangelicals included, to think that sex is first and foremost a fulfilling psychological and physical experience, that a couple has a right to enjoy themselves for a few years before they settle down to family life."HT: Denny Burk"In essence, we have already redefined marriage as an institution designed for personal happiness. . .
We cannot very well argue for the sanctity of marriage as a crucial social institution while we blithely go about divorcing and approving of remarriage at a rate that destabilizes marriage. We cannot say that an institution, like the state, has a perfect right to insist on certain values and behavior from its citizens while we refuse to submit to denominational or local church authority. We cannot tell gay couples that marriage is about something much larger than self-fulfillment when we, like the rest of heterosexual culture, delay marriage until we can experience life, and delay having children until we can enjoy each other for a few years....
In short, we have been perfect hypocrites on this issue."
Charles Spurgeon on Idolatry
A prayer of Charles Spurgeon:
Lord Jesus, take from us now everything that would hinder the closest communion with God. Any wish or desire that might hamper us in prayer remove, we pray You. Any memory of either sorrow or care that might hinder the fixing of our affection wholly on our God, take it away now. What have we to do with idols any more? You have seen and observed us. You know where the difficulty lies. Help us against it, and may we now come boldly, not in the Holy place alone, but in the Holiest of all, where we should not dare to come if our great Lord had not torn the veil, sprinkled the mercy seat with His own blood, and asked us to enter.Quoted in You Are The Treasure That I Seek by Greg Dutcher.
July 24, 2009
Obama Overexposure
Peter Baker has an illuminating NY Times article (yes--the NY Times):
It has become his common lament. Challenged about difficulties with his economic or legislative programs, President Obama complains about the tyranny of “the news cycle,” pronouncing the words with an air of above-it-all disdain for the impatience and fecklessness of today’s media culture.Read the whole thing.Yet after six months in office, perhaps no other president has been more attuned to, or done more to dominate, the news cycle he disparages. Mr. Obama has given roughly three times as many interviews as George W. Bush and held four times as many prime-time news conferences as Bill Clinton had by comparable points in their terms.
July 23, 2009
D.A. Carson on Christian Universities
D.A. Carson, “Can There Be a Christian University?” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 1:3 (1997): 20–38.
HT: JT
Excerpt of With One Voice
The good folks at Boundless have posted an excerpt of my book With One Voice.
July 17, 2009
On Vacation
We'll be back sometime during the last week of July. Blessings!
July 16, 2009
Youngest Person To Solo Sail Around the World
Zac Sunderland is a 17 year old homeschooled Christian.
Inspired by the best-selling book Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, Sunderland has now become the youngest person to ever sail around the world. He arrived back in Los Angeles, CA this morning after the 13 month journey.
Here's a feature story that ESPN did about him:
I'm assuming that Zac's website will be available later. (It probably is being crashed right now by excessive traffic.)
(HT: Image from The Rebelution)
Great Book about Poverty: On Sale
Authors Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett of the Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College have written a very interesting and timely book entitled When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself. For the next two days, Westminster Bookstore is offering this book for $4.89 (less than half the Amazon.com price, as you can see to the left). This $4.89 price is only valid until 5 PM (EST) on Saturday, July 18th.
A bit about the authors:
Steve Corbett is the Community Development Specialist for the Chalmers Center for Economic Development and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Community Development at Covenant College. Previously, Steve worked for Food for the Hungry International as the Regional Director for Central And South America and as Director of Staff Training. Steve has a B.A. from covenant College and a M.Ed. in Adult Education from the University of Georgia.
Brian Fikkert is an Associate Professor of Economics at Covenant College and the Founder and Executive Director of the Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College. Brian received a Ph.D. in Economics with highest honors from Yale University, and a B.A. in Mathematics from Dordt College. Specializing in Third World Development and International Economics, Brian has been a consultant to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development. He has published articles in both leading academic and popular journals and has been a contributor to several books. Prior to coming to Covenant College, he was a professor at the University of Maryland and a research fellow at the Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector.
Fikkert and Corbett were recently interviewed in byFaith Magazine about their new book. Here is one of their interactions:
After people have read the book, what do you want them to know, generally, that they don’t know now?
FIKKERT: I want people to have a biblical framework for thinking about the nature of poverty and its alleviation. If a doctor misdiagnoses the patient’s illness, he will prescribe the wrong medication. The patient will not get better and might even get worse. The same is true about our efforts to minister to the poor. The “medicine” we prescribe reflects our understanding of the underlying problem. If we have misdiagnosed the problem of poverty we can do harm to poor people, and surprisingly, to ourselves. I hope this book will help people examine their diagnosis of the causes of poverty and reconsider the medicine they are prescribing. Where are they in tune with Scripture and where do they need to make some adjustments? In the process, I also hope the book will help readers learn some fundamental things about themselves.
CORBETT: We want people to learn a number of things: that poverty has multiple dimensions; it is not primarily about "providing"; helping can hurt; something is not always better than nothing; short-term help which feels good to the giver can often be harmful to the receiver; and start with what people have and build from there.
Some of the Endorsements:
"Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert are zealous to make sure that we honor the gospel not only in word but also in deed by caring for "the least of these" as Christ instructed. But how can a local church make a difference, and how do individual Christians meaningfully reflect Christ's grace, when the disparities of wealth and power in our world are so great? And how do we show material care without drifting into a social gospel devoid of spiritual priorities? When Helping Hurts explores biblical principles in terms of real-life situations to offer real help and grace-filled answers for such questions."
- Dr. Bryan Chapell, President, Covenant Theological Seminary
"From the early pages, where the authors promptly and humbly confess how they have "messed up" in their own efforts to alleviate poverty, to the last chapters where their vast experience and on-the-street wisdom show through so helpfully, this is a book that wonderfully combines heavy-duty thinking with practical tools. As a journalist, I appreciate the author's story-telling and descriptive abilities. As a churchman, I appreciate their zeal to root all strategies in the institution God has ordained to bring about His goals. No donor should invest another dollar in any kind of relief effort before digesting the last page of this important book."
- Joel Belz, Founder and writer, World Magazine
"Corbett and Fikkert have done a masterful job integrating insights from Scripture, social science research, and community development practice to give readers sound, practical, and effective strategies for equipping people to have more effective ministry to the poor. In this excellent book you'll discover new ways of approaching short-term missions (that truly help the poor rather than hurt them) as well as new ways of providing long-term economic empowerment of poor people both in North America and across the world. When Helping Hurts should be required for all church leaders, academics and church members."
- Steven L. Childers, President & CEO, Global Church Advancement; Reformed Theological Seminary
July 15, 2009
The Housing Boom and Bust
The most recent book by Hoover economist Thomas Sowell, The Housing Boom and Bust
This is a plain-English explanation of how we got into the current economic disaster that developed out of the economics and politics of the housing boom and bust. The “creative” financing of home mortgages and the even more “creative” marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, are part of the story of how a financial house of cards was built up—and then suddenly collapsed.The politics behind all this is another story full of strange twists. No punches are pulled when discussing politicians of either party, the financial dangers they created, or the distractions they created later to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the financial house of cards in the financial markets collapsed.
What to do, now that we are in the midst of an economic disaster, is yet another story—one whose ending we do not yet know, but one whose outlines and implications are explored to reveal some surprising and sobering lessons.
Status on the Sotomayor Hearings
Paul Mirengoff of the Power Line sums up the Sotomayor hearings thus far.
Upshot: She is not doing well on the stand, and thus will not get much GOP support from the committee or from the full Senate.
Also, Byron York reports on why Republicans don't believe Sotomayor's stories.
Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ - John Piper
John Piper's has a new book available called Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton (Swans Are Not Silent)
Jesus' words in John 12 are sobering: unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it will bear little fruit. The history of Christianity's expansion proves that God's strategy for reaching unreached peoples with the gospel includes the sufferings of his frontline heralds-the missionaries who willingly die a thousand daily deaths to advance God's kingdom.Pastor John Piper's latest addition to The Swans Are Not Silent series focuses on this flesh-and-blood reality in the lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton. The price they paid to translate the Word of God, to pave the way for missionary mobilization around the world, and to lead the hostile to Christ was great. Yet their stories show in triplicate how the gospel advances not only through the faithful proclamation of the truth but through representing the afflictions of Christ in our sufferings.
July 14, 2009
Tights Are Not Pants
HT: Josh Harris
Two Views on The Permissibility of Deaconesses
Recently, the Presbyterian Church of America held a friendly, in-house discussion on the commissioning (not ordaining) of female deacons (i.e., deaconesses). Dr. Ligon Duncan maintained the position that:
"There are better-attested ways of encouraging our women in the diaconal ministry of the church than creating a class of female deacons (and there are already helpful suggestions toward that better way in our [denominational] standards)."And Dr. Tim Keller defended the view that:
"The biblical evidence is strong that women were examined for and appointed to do diaconal work in the local church, and that this work ... was publicly recognized and was held in honor among all."Their interaction is edifying for those outside the PCA as well.
In addition to making the text of Dr. Duncan's and Dr. Keller's remarks available (the links above), byFaith magazine has now made available the audio of a Q&A session which followed their presentations.
July 13, 2009
Time Cover Story on Marriage
Caitlin Flanagan has written an absolutely outstanding cover story for Time Magazine entitled, Is There Hope for the American Marriage? I do not think I have ever seen a better treatment by a main stream media publication on the institution of marriage.
Flanagan writes in the context of the high-profile affairs of Governor Sanford and Senator Ensign, as well as the "Jon and Kate" fallout. After noting that the children of lower-income single-parent homes do worse on every metric (drug abuse, school performance and dropout rates, teen pregnancy, criminal behavior and incarceration, etc.), Flanagan writes:
But children of divorced middle-class parents do less well in school and at college compared with underprivileged kids from two-parent households. "There's a 'sleeper effect' to divorce that we are just beginning to understand," says David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values. It is an effect that pioneering scholars like McLanahan and Judith Wallerstein have devoted their careers to studying, revealing truths that many of us may find uncomfortable. It's dismissive of the human experience, says Blankenhorn, to suggest that kids don't suffer, extraordinarily, from divorce: "Children have a primal need to know who they are, to love and be loved by the two people whose physical union brought them here. To lose that connection, that sense of identity, is to experience a wound that no child-support check or fancy school can ever heal."Flanagan's conclusion:
The fundamental question we must ask ourselves at the beginning of the century is this: What is the purpose of marriage? Is it — given the game-changing realities of birth control, female equality and the fact that motherhood outside of marriage is no longer stigmatized — simply an institution that has the capacity to increase the pleasure of the adults who enter into it? If so, we might as well hold the wake now: there probably aren't many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies in harness.Lastly, a lesson from the Sanford and Ensign accounts that is easy to miss is in I Cor. 10:12, "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." Their affairs did not begin "innocently" (as Gov. Sanford regrettably suggested). Rather, private failures precede public failures. When others fall, we should consider that, apart from care, self-examination and waging war with sin at the heart level, we might likewise fall.Or is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation's own safe passage into adulthood? Think of it this way: the current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can't be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children's lives — that's the generation who will be taking care of us when we are old.
A Praying Life - Paul Miller
I've been reading this outstanding book by Paul Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting With God in a Distracting World. Miller is perceptive of the many hindrances to regular prayer and he writes winsomely. Here is an insightful section where he traces the movement from God-grounded optimism in life to naive optimism to cynicism (which hinders prayer):
No culture is more optimistic than ours. America's can-do spirit comes from the Judeo-Christian confidence in the goodness of God acting on our behalf. Knowing that the Good Shepherd is watching and protecting me gives me courage to go through the valley of the shadow of death. Even in the presence of my enemies, I can enjoy a rich feast because God is with me. Faith in God leads to can-do boldness and daring action, the hallmarks of Western civilization.And that, in turn, leads to cynicism. Miller goes on to note, "In naive optimism we don't need to pray because everything is under control, everything is possible. In cynicism, we can't pray because everything is out of control, little is possible."In the nineteenth century that optimism shifted its foundation from the goodness of God to the goodness of humanity. Faith became an end in itself. President Roosevelt rallied the nation during the Depression by calling people to have faith in faith. In The Sound of Music Julie Andrews sang about having confidence in confidence itself. Disneyland, the icon of naive optimism, promises that we'll find Prince Charming and live happily ever after.
Optimism rooted in the goodness of people collapses when it confronts the dark side of life. The discovery of evil for most of us is highly personal. We encounter the cruelty of our friends in junior and senior high. In college the princes turn out to be less than charming. If we have children, we learn that they can be demanding and self-centered.
I highly recommend this book. Read the Foreword by Dr. David Powlison. Some of the endorsements:
"This is as fine a book on prayer that you will ever read, but it is so much more. It is the story of our struggle to actually live like we believe that our Heavenly father really does love us. If we did, nothing could keep us from being committed to the day by day hard work of prayer. Paul exegetes our struggle in a way that is convicting, insight giving and encouraging. This is a book on prayer that actually makes you want to pray!"
- Paul David Tripp, author of Broken Down House: Living Productively in a World Gone Bad
"If Jesus or Jesus' saving grace is just an abstraction to you, Paul Miller will be a great help in making his love a living reality to your heart."
- Tim Keller, author of The Prodigal God
Minimim Wage Hike Comes At a Bad Time
On July 24, less than two weeks from now, the minimum wage will increase to $7.25 an hour from $6.55, an 11% jump. The WSJ explores the implications of the wage increase:
The national wage floor will have increased 41% since the three-step hike was approved by the Democratic Congress in May 2007. Then the economy was humming, with an overall jobless rate of 4.5% and many entry-level jobs paying more than the minimum. That's a hard case to make now, with a 9.5% national jobless rate and thousands of employers facing razor-thin profit margins.In a nutshell:
In a 2006 National Bureau of Economic Research paper, economists David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve Bank reviewed the voluminous literature over the past 30 years and came to two almost universally acknowledged conclusions.Basically, bad news for teens and young adults looking for extra money and, more significantly, for single mothers. Read the whole thing.First, "a sizable majority of the studies give a relatively consistent (though not always statistically significant) indication of negative employment effects." Second, "studies that focus on the least-skilled groups [i.e., teens, and welfare moms] provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects."
HT: Kiana Kwon
More on Francis Collins and Abortion
Justin D. Barnard, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, writes for Public Discourse (Witherspoon Institute) today on the theme:
Many are pointing to Obama’s pick of an Evangelical to head the National Institutes of Health as a sign of the president's willingness to reach out to those with differing viewpoints. But his pick holds conflicted views about the human embryo and will oversee a department that, under new rules, is outsourcing the destruction of human life.Read the whole thing.
HT: JT
July 10, 2009
Happy Birthday, John Calvin
July 10, 2009 is the 500th birthday of John Calvin, a man whose life produced remarkable, far-reaching influence. I'll just point to a few posts that sing his praises better than I can.
Marvin Olasky offers an extended look at a new biography by Dutch scholar Herman Selderhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrim's Life.
Ligonier Ministries has a series of blog posts on Calvin's legacy.
Desiring God has a first installment of nine-part biographical sketch of Calvin's life and a post on celebrating Calvin for Christ's sake.
Collin Hansen at Christianity Today weighs in Calvin's diverse cast of admirers. Hansen is the author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.
I'm sure I'm missing a lot of other posts, so please feel free to comment with links to them.
Marvin Olasky on Francis Collins
Marvin Olasky, writing on World Magazine's website:
Collins, 59, is best known for directing the successful effort to sequence the humane genome, the DNA that makes up the human physical blueprint. But there’s more: Earlier this year, I heard him before a sophisticated New York audience speak of his personal faith in Christ, and he did so credibly and winsomely. He said it would require more faith not to believe in “a designed universe” than to see it as God-made.Read the whole thing (free to World subscribers and non-subscribers alike). Like Olasky, I would like to see Collins debate an ID expert.So, is Collins a proponent of Intelligent Design (ID)? Perish the thought! Yes, he speaks of “pointers to God from nature,” including “the precise tuning of 15 physical constants—if you tweak their values by a tiny fraction, it doesn’t work.” But he takes pains to argue for “theistic evolution” and recently set up the BioLogos Foundation, funded with a Templeton Foundation grant. According to its website, BioLogos “is the belief that Darwinism is a correct science.”
The Obama Stimulus: Predictions vs. Reality
Francis Collins on Abortion
David Klinghoffer at Beliefnet has the disappointing details on Dr. Francis Collins' position on abortion. Excerpt:
In a 1998 book he co-authored, Principles of Medical Genetics, he considers a bioethical situation where a genetic counselor is discussing with a (married) mother, 8 weeks pregnant, whether to abort her child because there's a 7 to 8 percent chance the child will have a mild learning disability. Should the mother indicate an interest in aborting, Collins and his two co-authors commend to the counselor a stance of "respect for [patient] autonomy" and "nondirective counseling." In other words, the medical professional in this context should be morally neutral.HT: Mere Comments via JT.
July 09, 2009
Francis Collins to Lead the NIH
Yesterday President Obama nominated Dr. Francis Collins to be the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Collins is highly regarded for his pioneering work in guiding the Human Genome Project to completion. If confirmed by the Senate, he will oversee the NIH's operations and (in 2009) its $31 billion annual budget dedicated to scientific research. Collins is also a born-again Christian (having been converted from atheism by the aid of Mere Christianity
Former NIH director Bernadine Healy, M.D., praises Obama's selection.
The Persecution of Sarah Palin
Matthew Continetti, Associate Editor of The Weekly Standard, is the author of a forthcoming book entitled The Persecution of Sarah Palin (Penguin Sentinel, 2010). In an op-ed piece for CNN, Continetti argues--convincingly, in my judgment--that we'll be hearing from Sarah Palin for a long time:
Something about Sarah Palin riles people up. After the McCain-Palin ticket lost the election and the governor returned to Alaska, the onslaught against her did not cease. The Democrats in the state legislature who once had been Palin's allies turned on her. Her opponents, continuing their never-ending search for dirt, inundated the governor's office with 150 Freedom of Information Act requests for documents relating to Palin's schedule and contacts.And:The Anchorage Daily News counts 18 ethics complaints filed against Palin. All of them have been dismissed, but at great cost to the state in man-hours and wasted resources. The Palin family's personal legal liability is around half a million dollars.
Meanwhile, the father of her grandchild went on a publicity tour flacking "intimate" details about her family, and David Letterman joked on national television about Alex Rodriguez impregnating her underage daughter Willow. (He later apologized, saying he intended for the joke to be about Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol. As if that would make it any more tasteful.) And McCain sources kept providing ridiculous insinuations about her to reporters (all on background, of course).
Palin is impulsive. Her charisma is such that she does not need to hold an office to command attention or wield influence. She resigned from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission all of a sudden in 2004, plunged into a Republican gubernatorial primary in October 2005 and joined McCain's campaign without hesitation. Two of these three dizzying moves ended up in victory, and one did not.Read the whole thing. My take is that she should not and will not run for President in 2012. However, she will be a significant player in the conservative movement, and will, over time, become increasingly knowledgeable and conversant on the issues of our day.
July 08, 2009
Interview of Cultural Commentator Ken Myers
I've always enjoyed Mars Hill Audio, led by Ken Myers. It is sort of a "Christian NPR." Walter Henegar interviews Ken Myers in the PCA magazine byFaith. Prior to the interview, Henegar gives some helpful background on Myers and how Mars Hill Audio came about.
The Gospel: Spread It or Lose It
John Piper, in reflecting on the legacy of Ralph Winter, notes that valuing missions (the continual spreading of the gospel in other cultures) has a vital role in preserving the gospel within one's own denomination or church (or even at the individual level).
One of the most helpful treatments I've read in this regard is a chapter in Let the Nations Be Glad! entitled "The Supremacy of Christ as the Conscious Focus of All Saving Faith." It rigorously argues that people need to consciously place faith in Christ in order to experience salvation. That belief undergirds and motivates missions. Likewise, the retreat from that conviction makes gospel-spreading optional, and therefore less valued and less likely to occur.
Related: My review of Let the Nations Be Glad!
July 06, 2009
Lyrical Theology and Doxology
What he says in the first 2 minutes would have taken me 30 minutes and I would have needed a manuscript!
HT: Brian Borgman
Should churches acknowledge civil holidays?
Bob Kauflin and Jeff Purswell offer some good words on this subject. An excerpt:
In brief, since God’s kingdom is not of this world (Jn. 18:36), we don’t feel any obligation to draw attention to, highlight, or celebrate civil holidays as part of our Sunday gatherings. There are a number of reasons. Our country doesn’t set the agenda and priorities for the meetings of the church – God’s Word does. Also, one country’s celebration may confront another country’s values. For instance you won’t find many Christians in Britain excited about Independence Day. Finally, we gather on Sundays to remember the covenant God has made with us, celebrate the redemption He has provided through His Son, and to encourage one another to live lives worthy of the Gospel. The values celebrated by a particular public holiday may not always line up with those goals.Read the whole thing.However, that doesn’t mean we need to completely ignore civil holidays.
Clerical Leaders Defy Ayatollah on Iran Election
Michael Slackman and Nazila Fathi, writing for the NY Times, report:
An important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.Read the whole thing.
Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (who played the heroic character Zahra in The Stoning of Soraya M., an outstanding film about a woman unjustly murdered in Iran via Sharia Law) shared her thoughts with me last week on the developments in Iran, comparing them to what she saw in 1979.
Review of Feelings and Faith
JJ Sherwood, Pastor of Student Ministries at Five Points Community Church, writes a helpful and thorough review of Feelings and Faith: Cultivating Godly Emotions in the Christian Life by Brian Borgman. An excerpt:
The second half of the book looks at mortifying ungodly emotions (Part 3) and cultivating godly emotions (Part 4). The first half of the book was well worth the price of the book, and the second half was just as excellent, if not more so. In fact, I believe Borgman wrote the first half of the book so well, that the second half just fell into place and was easy to read, meditate on, convicting and helpful. So many books start well, finish well or don’t do too much well at all, but this book was biblically solid, theologically sound, and pastoral practical through and through. Ungodly emotions such as anger and anxiety, unforgiveness and fear are taken up in Part 3 with a view towards killing these ungodly emotions in the life of the believer. Part 4 two chapters on how Jesus is our pattern for cultivating godly emotions because he perfectly possessed and displayed “the full spectrum of human emotions, without any darkness” and we see in Him “the goodness of emotions and the godly pattern of emotions.” Part 4 is an extremely helpful section to close the book because it is thorougly Christ-centered in its focus and practical in its application. I especially benefited from chapters 17 and 18, The Emotions & Worship and The Emotions & Preaching.I previously posted an interview with Brian Borgman as well as my endorsement of this excellent book.
The Path To 9-11: An Outstanding Docudrama
With a sick daughter and wife, and potty training reaching a critical, make-or-break juncture, we decide to forgo the traditional fireworks outing this weekend, put the kids to bed (too young to know what they are missing), and watch the uncut version of The Path To 9-11. If you recall, this 5-6 hour docudrama was aired on ABC over two nights (September 10 and 11, 2006) at the five year anniversary of the infamous 2001 terrorist attack. I was among the 28,000,000 people who saw it at the time, but my wife had missed it. Two weeks prior to its airing in 2006, Disney/ABC came under tremendous pressure from Democrats in Congress (notably Harry Reid and Charles Schumer) as well as President Clinton's lawyers to cancel the movie or at least cut material. According to the writer and producer Cyrus Nowrasteh, a letter was sent to Disney/ABC threatening revocation of their station licenses if they didn’t pull or recut the miniseries. Disney CEO Bob Iger caved to pressure and cut three minutes out of the program. The material that I believe was cut (based on my conversation with Cyrus last week at the showing of The Stoning of Soraya M.) is in the YouTube clip below.
The entire docudrama is absolutely outstanding. Watch it if you can. Unfortunately, Disney/ABC have blocked all efforts to sell or rent DVDs of the film via Netflix, Blockbuster, etc. I have a few copies because a kind man named Jesse handed them to me last week at the The Stoning of Soraya M. event. If you live near us, perhaps you could borrow a copy. Leave a comment if you are interested.
Incidentally, the efforts to block the release of The Path To 9-11 have themselves become the subject of a documentary entitled Blocking the Path to 9-11. It can be ordered for $20 .
UPDATE: Cyrus Nowrasteh has now confirmed that the scene above was the scene that ABC deleted.
July 04, 2009
Honoring the USA
Ray Ortland Jr. gives five reasons why he honors the USA this Independence Day. Here is one of them:
The USA embodies, very imperfectly, a conviction that every one of us has God-given dignity: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."
July 03, 2009
Top Commentaries For Every Book Of The Bible
Though not a substitute for Bible intake, good commentaries on books of the Bible are very helpful resources for grappling with the text, particularly its more difficult sections. Dr. Keith Mathison, author of several books including From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology has compiled a list of what he considers to be the top 5 commentaries of every book of the Bible. There are 66 books in the Bible, so that would be 330 commentaries. [If the average length of one of these commentaries is 250 pages, that would be 82,500 pages of commentary material. Wow.]
But don't be overwhelmed. You don't have to read every page of a commentary to find it a blessing. Though if you owned just a single commentary, and (along with the Bible) read 2 pages a day from it, you would complete the entire commentary in about 6-12 months (maybe less for a shorter book).
July 02, 2009
Gov. Mark Sanford: A Tragic Spectacle
I agree with Dr. Albert Mohler regarding Gov. Sanford's admission of adultery:
Governor Sanford may cite King David, and he may even suffer the illusion that his response is similar to that of Israel's King. Nevertheless, the difference is clear. David's adultery was mixed even with murder, but his own acknowledgment of sin came in a flood of contrition, remorse, broken heartedness, and humility. David acknowledged the reality of his sin, expressed his hatred of the sin, and became a model for us all of repentance. Governor Sanford, on the other hand, demonstrates the audacity to speak wistfully of his sin, longingly of his lover, and romantically of his descent into unfaithfulness.Read the whole thing.Governor Sanford is no King David, and the people of South Carolina -- as well as the watching world -- now observe the sad spectacle of a man who, while admitting to wrongdoing, shows no genuine repentance. As the Christian church has long recognized, true repentance is reflected in the "detestation of sin." This is a far cry from what we've heard from Governor Sanford.
If the governor is really serious about demonstrating character to his four sons, he should resign his office and give himself unreservedly to his wife and family. He must show his sons -- and all who have eyes to see -- how a man is led by the grace and mercy of God to hate his sin, rather than to love it.
July 01, 2009
Brief Review of The Stoning of Soraya M.
My wife and I were able to see The Stoning of Soraya M. last night. The movie was intense and disturbing, featuring a gripping plot line with fantastic acting, an excellent script, and great camera work. The character development of Soraya and Zahra was superb. The filming was done in Jordan and the movie is mostly in Farsi with English subtitles. It was incredibly realistic, and as the story line built to a crescendo the horror of the betrayal and human suffering were almost unbearable. The R rating is appropriate given the theme and the violence. This is the kind of movie that is worth seeing to be reminded that many, many real people in this world (particularly women) suffer tremendously due to the strictures of Sharia Law. In many cases, as in this movie, the defendant is completely innocent -- indeed, is framed by evil men for the sake of dishonest gain.
The highlight for us was when we were exiting the theater it turned out that The World Affairs Council of Orange County was hosting an event that night. We had no idea about it. Anyway, lead actress and Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (who plays the heroic character Zahra) was there as was Navid Negahban (who plays the wicked husband Ali) along with the writer and director Cyrus Nowrasteh (who also wrote The Path To 9-11, an outstanding documentary aired on ABC in 2006 and viewed by twenty-eight million people). Tommy Papa, the managing director of the film, was also there. So we had a good time talking to them a bit, and we were even permitted to film a few brief video interviews, which I will be posting soon.
Go see this movie (here are the theater listings) as soon as you can. You will not regret it. It will powerfully move you. The film is worthy of our support. May it lead to the advance of liberty and equal rights in Iran and beyond.
Here's a shot of me with Shohreh Aghdashloo:
Search
Categories
Archives
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
Recent Posts
- The Altar: Not the Finish Line
- The Snake Oil of Obama's Health Care Plan
- Obama, Professor Gates, and Sergeant Crowley
- Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?
- Charles Spurgeon on Idolatry
- Obama Overexposure
- D.A. Carson on Christian Universities
- Excerpt of With One Voice
- On Vacation
- Youngest Person To Solo Sail Around the World