This morning at the Desiring God National Conference, Vodie Bauchman gave a great message entitled The Supremacy of Christ and Truth in a Postmodern World.  It was very compelling and passionate plea for the truth of the Christian gospel in contrast to a secular view.  Tim Challies summarizes the message here.  

Though I thought this message was very good, it should have
been titled "The Supremacy of Christ and the Truth in a Modernistic World" - Bauchman clearly represented a humanistic/nihilistic worldview that he called "Postmodern secular humanism" - this view was not a postmodern one. 

Just for interest, Bauchman asked four questions of worldviews which I find helpful: 1) Who am I? 2) Why I am here? 3) What is wrong with the world? 4) How to we make that wrong right? Seeing how Bauchman answered these for "postmodern secular humanism" it will be evident that he was representing a modernistic view not a postmodern one:

Secular Humanist Perspective

Who am I? You are nothing! You are an accident, a mistake. You are a glorified ape and that is all you are. You are the result of random evolutionary processes. There is no rhyme, no reason, no purpose.

Why am I here? To consume and enjoy. No amount is ever enough as we always want a little bit more. All that matters is power. The answers to the first two questions bring about the social Darwinism that has caused such harm to the world.

What is wrong with the world? People are either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed. People either don't know enough or they aren't being watched enough.

How can what is wrong be made right? More education and more government. Teach people more stuff. The problem is that if you take a sinful human being and teach him more, you create a person with greater ability to destroy. Then we govern them more, but who governs the governors?

This is a good critique of the worldview that flowered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but I do not see this being a view held by postmoderns.  To illustrate, I am going to track through the four questions as they might have been answered by that view.

Who am I? A postmodern reply would be along the lines of the ecclectic self.  A person is how they are self-defined through their choices and cultural proclivities.  One may choose to self-identify with certain groups, causes, styles, beliefs, brands, music, film etc.  The postmodern person can build their self how they see fit.  It is a fundamental denial of an ontological and universal human nature...in its place is substituted a constructed self made in the image of the choices of the autonomous man.

Why am I here? We are here...there is not an ultimate explanation for this fact.  Due to this reality, and my felt need for meaning, the postmodern desire is to create this meaning in community and live it there.  Ultimate metanarratives are replaced by mini narratives which we create (with language) and enjoy our together.

What's wrong with the world?  Human beings have for millenia had the perchant to absolutize the views of their tribe.  As a result peoples have sought to conquer, destroy, and oppress others with their absolutist ideologies...many times using such elegant tools of persuasion such as tanks.  This in the postmodern mind is very bad [don't ask if it is absolutely bad - that would be obnoxious of you]

How can this wrong be made right? Human beings should embrace a tolerant view of the world where all views are equally valued, even celebrated, and human beings are thereby free, without fear, to create meaning and enjoy the creation and enjoyment of their selves.

I think thinking through how the gospel Truth confronts these issues and fulfills the longings behind them, would be an interesting talk to hear Dr. Bauchman address.

On a final note - Tim Challies is summarizing the sessions on his site - they are very good summaries of the messages given.  Additionally, Desiring God will be providing the audio for download, free of charge, later in the week.  Isn't free a good thing?

JI Packer made a striking statement:

I find myself suspecting very strongly that my work on the translation of the ESV Bible was the most important thing that I have done for the Kingdom, and that the product of our labors is perhaps the biggest milestone in Bible translation in the past fifty years or more.

The Crossway has an update on the ESV on its web site. Five Years, 3 million Bibles, online excellence, international traction, adoption by churches and ministries, etc.

I certainly am thankful for this translation of the Bible; it has been a pleasant grace to my life for several years and was the only text which was able to pull me out of the NIV of my conversion.  If you have not purchased one - I recommend the ESV Journaling Bible - mainly because it is just so cool. 

Going to read mine now. 

Found this on the web tonight - this took some thought, and probably motivated by unbelief, but I enjoyed the creativity...I would add a few more programs to the file to complete the story:

C:\RUN DECREE
Covenant Program initiated
C:\SEND JESUS
Parameter Missing
C:\SEND JESUS, t=FULLNESS OF TIME
Command Successful
C:\RUN REDEMPTION
Command successful
C:\RUN JUDGE_EVIL
Command successful
C:\RUN KINGDOM
infinite loop...
no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King,, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King, no sin, no death, no disease, no suffering, glory, love, joy, peace, Christ is King

This weekend I was discussing with a friend limited/definite atonement, unlimited atonement, and the third option, the have your cake and be happy to eat it to...yes, its all in the Bible, multiple intentions view.

Dr. Bruce Ware articulates the multiple intentions view well, so I am linking to a pdf of his brief outline here for my friend.  I think this is better positioned as a "multiple intentions of the cross" rather than multiple intentions of the atonement...but maybe I am being too picky :)

Discipline. What to make of it? We know its value, but seldom like to submit to her rule. The cyclist who wins multiple titles in the Tour de France knows her well. The artist who has taken years to develop his craft is a sure acquaintance. Whether a Lance Armstrong or a Leonardo Da Vinci, discipline is the constant companion of human progress wherever it is found. Yet there is a mood in our generation which despises the mere mention of the word discipline. We are a “me-centered”, get it now, don’t want to wait, self-obsessed, hope it all comes real easy sort of people. This is the cultural air we breathe and the water in which we swim. Some of you reading this may think this essay is too long to read; you may become lazy and quit a few paragraphs in. Don’t. For a lack of discipline creeps into our spiritual lives as followers of Jesus and the result is a dead and boring faith. Knowledge and relationship with the infinite God and just bored; well that just sort of sucks, so please keep on reading.

It may be a little obnoxious to say, but it is real easy to forget that the word discipline and disciple are very close relatives. They actually both come from the Latin word disciplina which means teaching or learning. To be disciplined means to be dedicated to learning and a disciple is a learner, a follower, one who believes his teacher knows what the heck he is talking about and then gets in line accordingly. To follow Jesus, to follow our teacher, to be his disciple, requires what we sometimes would rather avoid – it requires discipline. To say yes to him, to love him, to choose him daily, to not be swept away by the currents of the world is a pretty big mountain facing us. In fact, without his power in us, we dare not start the ascent. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said “Follow me” or “If you love me you will keep my commandments” or “He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for service in the Kingdom of God.” This requires us to be disciplined followers.

Paul, an early Christian leader, once told Timothy, a young man he was mentoring, that he was to train himself for godliness (1 Timothy 4:7,8). Training requires discipline. It involves following Jesus; it requires walking the paths God has given us which lead towards his purpose for our lives. Why? God really desires to transform our lives, to change us for the better. He really does. Christian philosopher Dallas Willard articulates this well.

It is we who are in danger: in danger of missing the fullness of life offered to us. Can we seriously believe that God would establish a plan for us that essentially bypasses the awesome needs of present human life and leaves human character untouched? Would he leave us even temporarily marooned with no help in our kind of world, with our kind of problems: psychological, emotional, social, and global? Can we believe the essence of Christian Faith and salvation covers nothing but death and after? Can we believe that being saved really has nothing whatever to do with the kind of persons we are? In order for us to change, we must enter his school of training; yes, our joy depends on it.

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy : Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, 1st ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 38.

Training to be like Jesus

Christians are people that through faith in Jesus and his death on the cross have come to know God. One would guess that such an encounter with someone like…GOD, would change us. And such is reality; he really does a work in and through us. We know that God’s purpose with us is to transform us to be more like Jesus. To make us more like him in character, more like him in what we love, more like him in the way we go about our business here on the earth. Yet many just want to say a prayer, have an experience, get a spiritual buzz and “poof” – we become instant, mature, spiritual people. No sweat, no work, no struggle. After a while we find out that this just doesn’t work. The Christian faith is not a magic trick; it is daily discipleship to our Lord.

When we begin to ask some questions: How do we change? How does God train us, transform us, and make our lives different? The end of the journey we know is to love Jesus, be in relationship with Jesus, worship Jesus and end up becoming like Jesus. It is joy in a relationship, a dynamic love affair with the living God that we are after. Yet the path to that end is often not known, at the very least it is a road less traveled. So in this paper I am going to recommend something very old, very simple, which has been around for a long stinking time. That God not only ordains the end for our lives, becoming like Jesus, but he also has designed the means to that end. He has designed the very paths which we walk towards that reality.

If we neglect these paths we will be robbed of joy, robbed of God while looking for him in all the wrong places. It is easy to see that you don’t go out into the dessert to go surfing, you don’t drink light beer to quench your thirst, you don’t go to the NASCAR race to hear a reading of poetry, and you don’t go looking for God in a choose your own adventure book version of spirituality. You can bang your head into a brick wall thinking you will become spiritual; you’ll just go home with a headache and a little uglier than you were before. So just what are the paths marked out for us to train to be like Jesus? Historically, people have used different descriptions. Some have chosen to call them the means of grace, others the spiritual disciplines. Either way, they are the biblical patterns of life by which God moves upon believers to transform them into the image of Christ. They are the aqueducts by which the water of the Spirit flows into our lives. And it is to those disciplines we now turn.

The Spiritual Disciplines

Much could be written about the different ways God has designed for us to grow; many are so simple, so well known, that to some it may sound like an oversimplification of things. Yet God has not made knowing him and pursuing him to be exceedingly complex. It is not an easy path to walk; but it is not like trying to solve some obscure puzzle. Yet unless the Spirit of God himself moves you, empowers you, gives you a love for Jesus, even these disciplines can become a dead work leaving you empty. But when God grabs you by the neck, lovingly embraces you, smacks you around a bit so you come to your senses, puts your feet on a rock and puts you in a new race, you’ll find that these disciplines will place you in the direct flood of the work of God. There is no better place to be. Yet just before we check out a few of the disciplines, let me first comment on the nature of the disciplines. Are these disciplines for the individual, FOR ME, or are these paths to be for the corporate body, FOR US?

Our culture is overly individualistic; we focus on self at times almost exclusively. We are concerned with self-worth, self-esteem, self-image, self-actualization, self-help, blah, blah, blah. Yet in the Scriptures we see that God works in and through a people, a community, not simply individuals. Yet we cannot throw out babies with our cultural bath water. God has indeed made us unique, distinct, individual souls. Designed for community, yes, but we are created as individuals no less. God neither wants us to exalt our individuality at the expense of others, nor to obliterate it into some blobish oneness of being where no one is valued as unique. So it is no surprise that God has marked out some disciplines for the individual, for me, and others for the community, for us. Let us a look at a few of each. Some of these rightly overlap; others more often to happen in the solitude of your soul before our God.

Continue reading "On the Spiritual Disciplines" »

No, that is not the title for a goofy Christian knockoff of MySpace - though there is not doubt one of those in the making.  Rather, VoxPop, a communication ministry of Mars Hill Church in Seattle has a helpful entry on representing Christ in digital spaces in our culture (blogs, wikis, myspace, facebooks, etc)

If you blog, have a space, etc. There is wise counsel found in this short post. 

There is a brief discussion of science and faith over at Scientific American.  It is a bit facile, but nonetheless highlights some recent works in the debate. 

I plan to review a couple of books here soon which touch on the faith/reason, faith/"science" questions.  I am just so stinkin tired from lack of sleep and a full load in ministry, that it has been a bit tough to get to.

The two books are:

• iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It- the biography of inventor Steve Wozniak - I am 1/2 way done with this one
  
• Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? - I have finished this one.

 

A friend of mine is working on putting together a regular podcast called Godsmac (not to be confused with Godsmack) featuring talk about technology, features on various ministries, as well as offering reflections on spiritual things.  It is fresh out the gate, finding its flavor, and beginning to get a little traction.  I did an interview with Gabe (the man running his mac) last night that will soon be up on the site.

You can check it out at www.godsmac.com -Although the name has to do with a "Mac" I think it is fun to think of it as talkin some GodSmack.

John Piper has an excellent article repsonding to the recent "outrage" and violence at the words of Pope Benedict in a recent speech.

Piper does a great job putting the speech in context of what was said along side the fire bombings and the murder of a Catholic nun in Mogadishu.  His recommendations for our response to all of this is worthy of your time to read.

You may read it here. 

 

There are several articles out there on the recent Muslim response to a speech made by Pope Benedict.  Very interesting to see how the press and the editorials are reacting...

• Iranian Leader Urges For Papal Protests - ABC News
• Pope Says "Sorry" about Reaction to His Remarks - Washington Post
• Let the Pope Preach Times London
• Why the Pope was Right - Times London
• Benedict the Brave - The Wall Street Journal

Even in London, some people may be waking up.  I'll close with a quote from the article "Let the Pope Preach"

The Vatican has said he is very sorry his speech caused such offence to Muslims. That is fine but it should not go further than that. He should certainly not be pushed into withdrawing his remarks. As in the case of the Danish cartoons, Muslim zealots are trying to impose their restrictions of free expression on the West. Mindful as we should be of religious sensitivities, that cannot be allowed to happen.

Yet is it too late for a Postmodern, population imploding, cannot stand for anything Europe to change?  Only time will tell...

I have currently been listening to an album entitled "New Irish Hymns 4" with contemporary hymns sung by Margaret Becker, Kristen Getty, and Joanne Hogg.  I like it for a couple of reasons.

1. I am Irish and like a lot of things "Irish"
2. I love the theological richness and depth of the lyrics
3. It is a little different genre of tunes for me...
4. My daughters love it - enough said :)
   

Additionally, The Power of the Cross, a song on this CD, has just crushed my heart with overwhelming joy and thanksgiving to Jesus.  I can't think of another cut in our day which reflects the essence of the gospel in a more powerful way...

I will never forget singing this with 1200 men at the 2006 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors 

The Power of the Cross 

Oh to see the dawn
Of the darkest day;
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten then
Nailed to a cross of wood.

This the power of the cross:
Christ became sin for us,
Took the blame, bore the wrath -
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh to see the pain
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Every bitter thought,
Every evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

This the power...

Now the daylight flees,
Now the ground beneath
Quakes as it's Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two;
Dead are raised to life;
Finished! the victory cry.

This the power...

Oh to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.

This the power of the cross:
Son of God, slain for us.
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross.

The Power of the Cross
Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2005 Thankyou Music

This week was a big week for announcements...especially in the area of handheld devices that kick tunes, tv, and movies.  First up Apple announced the new shuffle, nano, and iPod along with a major iTunes upgrade.  And yes, you can now do movies through the iTunes store.  At leas movies from the studios of which Steve Jobs is a board member. The webcast of the Steve Jobs show can be found here.

The final bit of buzz is from Amazon, they too have launched a movie download component, but with many more studios on board that just Disney. Unbox does TV, anime, movie purchase and rental...with tons of content.  Looks robust.

Unbox + ZuneMarketplace?  Does apple finally have some real competition in this space?  

A friend writes this to me regarding the recent statements made by Pope Benedict in relation to Islam...

So Pope Benedict states a historical fact, that Islam was spread at the point of a sword, and the Muslim community asks that he apologize...a bad start, but let's go on.  To show the full brunt of their outrage at someone willing to state the truth, they bomb a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza.  AHA!  See, we're not violent; we're so non-violent that we blow things up when you suggest that we are violent!

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) would be ashamed of such logic.  After reading the NY Times article something very odd indeed stands out.  Indeed, the only harm that has been done is to hurt someone's feelings with some rather innocous statements.  But to read the reaction, and the fear heard in the journalism, you would think that a bunch of people might get killed because someone's feelings were hurt. Why?  Especially when Haken al-Mutairi, the leader of the of the Islamic Nation Party in Kuwait, says the following about Islam:

I call on all Arab and Islamic states to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican and expel those from the Vatican until the pope says he is sorry for the wrong done to the prophet and to Islam, which preaches peace, tolerance, justice and equality.

If people of Islam are about peace and tolerance, why does everyone freak out when some says "Mohammed taught to spread Islam by the sword."  What does the secular West want - to deny history and pander to a tolerant, peaceful people by not saying things which may hurt someone's feelings?  Bizarre.  The truth is that stuff is already being blown up, threatened, and the bee hive of peace is buzzing.  Another quote from the Times is revelatory:

In Pakistan, Muslim leaders and scholars said that Benedict’s words widened the gap between Islam and Christianity, and risked what one official called greater “disharmony.”

What is "disharmony" a code word for?  Finally, the illogic of all this is clearly displayed by a newspaper from Morroco:

The paper also drew a comparison between the pope’s remarks and the outcry in the Muslim world over unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published around Europe beginning last year.

“The global outcry over the calamitous cartoons have only just died down and now the pontiff, in all his holiness, is launching an attack against Islam,” the newspaper wrote.

The first outrage was the drawing of cartoons, which led to bombs and death threats.  But, wait, we just don't understand, the prophet is sacred to Muslims, they have every right to issue death threats and bombs if cartoons are drawn of him.  If we only understood Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance, people would not draw cartoons that "make" people violent and intolerant.  And Benedicts response, is described in the language of war, "He is launching an attack against Islam" - no, the only attacks being launched at these words are by the faithful and peaceful whose feelings the secular west is so terrified of hurting. 

The Pope's remarks I have pulled for you here:

In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (F×< 8`(T) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

For the full text of the Pope's speech, you can go here.

Upon taking a mission which will mean heavy casualties, and the observation about the level of rest his men have received, the Colonel states following:

There's more to fighting
than rest, sir.                   
There's character.                  
There's strength ot heart.

You should have seen us
in action two days ago.              
We were a sight to see.                   
We'll be ready, sir.
When do you want us?

If more of us could show up like this everyday of our lives.  My question is for all of us is this.  Can we say that we'll be ready...when our time comes to love, serve, and give our lives for others.

The second quote showed the passion, hope, and readiness seen in a soldier who was very simple in his understanding of the world and what was before them the night before a great battle. This took place at the fireside prayer meeting the night before they would fight.

Tomorrow we goin' to battle.

So, Lordy, let me fight
with the rifle in one hand...
and the Good Book in the other.

That if I should die
at the muzzle of the rifle...
die on water or on land...

I may know that You,
blessed Jesus Almighty, are with me.

With Jesus!
And I have no fear. Amen.

May we face all of our battles, be they big or small, in like manner.  Without fear.  I pray that as we continue in our struggle for racial justice in our country that we would give up our comforts, our own proclivities so that we may serve others who are different than we.

Justin Taylor has a great quote by Carl Trueman about "prosperity" teaching in the churches whose heritage is the reformation.  It is worth repeating for we need to hear this in our day:

Carl Trueman on the prosperity problem:

"What always challenges me about prosperity doctrine is that many of us who repudiate it in theory still practice it in reality. Every time we suffer a minor setback and are tempted to curse God in our hearts, that's practical prosperity doctrine. Every time we measure our success by the size of our churches, or the near-eschatological importance of our conferences by the number of attendees and the calibre of the speakers, or our self-worth by the Reformed megastar names we can drop in conversation, we make ourselves vulnerable to accusations that we too are committed to a form of the prosperity doctrine, more subtle and all the more deadly precisely because of that subtlety.

"We are what we are in Christ, nothing more, nothing less. And in his final hours, Christ was friendless, an embarrassment to his disciples, with the fair weather followers and even his closest friends having long since abandoned him; and then, to cap it all, he was crucified. We shouldn't be complacent about the prosperity doctrine; it's not just a problem for 'them'; it's a problem for us too."

In no way am I immune to this, I pray that my heart would be Christ - that I would boast only in him and in his cross.  How impossible this seems in a place like America - God help us...

There is a fantastic article by Tim Keller entitled Evangelistic Worship over at The Resurgence.  Keller tracks through the various issues surrounding contemporary services, traditional services, and carving out something different which is more than a mere blending. 

Highly recommended for pastors. 

I posted this as a comment elsewhere, but thought it might be an interesting read...now it was not written as a research piece, and while I was stupid tired, but I think it may be helpful in understanding the times in which we live...

The question was asked about whether in all our discussions and debates about Postmodernism and ministry, are people really asking the philosophical questions today or are these merely intramural debates which are perhaps distracting from the main issues folk are wrestling with.
 

Continue reading "Being, Knowing, and a long long story..." »

Al Mohler makes some interesting observations about Islam:

Link Hey -- When Did Pinocchio Become a Muslim?

Newsweek has an article they are calling The New Naysayers which chronicles the work of several atheists who think religion is the root of all evil.  It is interesting that the article would call Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins new faces in the atheistic world of things.  Dawkins is a well known Darwinist bull dog and Dennett is highly active with many publications which are far from friendly towards belief in God.  In fact, Dennett is invovled with the Center for Naturalism which desires to purge the world of superstitious religious beliefs.  Interestingly enough I plan on reading Dennett's new book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon here in the next few months.  Anyway, the article is an interesting read for those who like to know what the leading thinkers in unbelief are up to.  Here are a few examples of the kinds of explanations of life you get with this group of people.  Feel the love from the Just so stories world of Evolutionary Psychology.  It simply demonstrates what I have always found as a terrible weakness in naturalistic thought - that of explaining the prescriptive nature of ethics.  This feeble attempt to explain altruism and supererogatory acts is week enough in giving a reason why there is morality (descriptive nature of ethics - which explains what is), but it does absolutely nothing to tell you why one ought to be moral tomorrow.  You simply can do what ever the heck you want...as long as you can get away with it.

But Dawkins attempts to show how the highest of human impulses, such as empathy, charity and pity, could have evolved by the same mechanism of natural selection that created the thumb. Biologists understand that the driving force in evolution is the survival and propagation of our genes. They may impel us to instinctive acts of goodness, Dawkins writes, even when it seems counterproductive to our own interests—say, by risking our life to save someone else. Evolutionary psychology can explain how selfless behavior might have evolved. The recipient may be a blood relation who carries some of our own genes. Or our acts may earn us future gratitude, or a reputation for bravery that makes us more desirable as mates. Of course, the essence of the moral law is that it applies even to strangers. Missionaries who devote themselves to saving the lives of Third World peasants have no reasonable expectation of being repaid in this world. But, Dawkins goes on, the impulse for generosity must have evolved while humans lived in small bands in which almost everyone was related, so that goodness became the default human aspiration.

Or try this on for size.  I could replace my worship of the Trinitarian God, who loved me and gave himself up for me with the worship of [Gm1m2/r²]. 

On the science Web site Edge.org, the astronomer Carolyn Porco offers the subversive suggestion that science itself should attempt to supplant God in Western culture, by providing the benefits and comforts people find in religion: community, ceremony and a sense of awe. "Imagine congregations raising their voices in tribute to gravity, the force that binds us all to the Earth, and the Earth to the Sun, and the Sun to the Milky Way," she writes.

Praise Gravity from whom all cohesion flows, praise that mathematical reality here below, praise it for destroying us with black holes, praise quasars, red dwarfs and wormholes....aaaaaaamen. Give me a break. 

I personally worship the one whose mind designed gravity and the marvelous created universe in which it operates.

(HT - Ben Vastine for pointing me to the Newsweek piece) 

Russell Moore has a funny little commentary on the TNIV being the official translation of Relevant Magazine.  I found this to be fantastic little weave of satire and wit.   If you are a huge TNIV fan (I'm not) and can't laugh you may not like this.  But I think whether you are über-Relevant or a 1950s pipe organ player you will get a kick out of this.

We know CS Lewis would not be allowed to be a Southern Baptist pastor (the moderate beer drinking thing), but he sure wrote, according to Moore, a great "early screenplay for The Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia movie that provided the context for Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday" skit." 

If you have never seen Lazy Sunday it has been everywhere for a long time...and it might indicate you are not really with it.

My only edit to Dr. Moore's post would be to adjust his urban venacular in the final line. I would change it to: "Its all about the Benjamins, baby!" as this phrase is a bit more relevant.  See Urban Dictionary.  Or perhaps they knew this and used the "All about the Hamiltons" phrase on purpose to poke at sounding cool.  If so, the post is more masterfully written than I previously thought.

Touché! Dr. Moore.  Thank you for spurring the gift of laughter in the church. 
 

There is a delightful little book series written and illustrated by Joey Allen.  These book are fun, quick, little reads which take the little girls and guys into some sound theological waters in a unique way. Each book has another kid as a tour guide of sorts which takes the reader/listener through some Big Thoughts...

I think they could easily have been titled - Big Thoughts for making Little Thinkers as they do bring forth sound theological concepts for the kids.  Just about every page has small Scripture references to be utilized by the parents.  The volume on the trinity even has a copy of an ancient creed - Kayla and I read it getting loud and fired up about all the great doctrines and truths taught in the creed.  Fun. 

Here are links to the books where you can purchase.  A must for every little persons theological libray:

1. Big Thoughts For Little Thinkers: The Trinity
2. Big Thoughts For Little Thinkers: The Gospel
3. Big Thoughts For Little Thinkers: The Scripture
4. Big Thoughts For Little Thinkers: The Mission

Mr. Allen, if you read this I would suggest the following as additional titles, but I guess you may already have some in the works.

• The Atonement - uniting the Old Testament sacrifices with NT teaching (ie Hebrews), and perhaps weave in all the intensions God has for the cross.
• The Son of God - hit the hypostatic union, Jesus as Son of God, Son of Man, and the Messiah of Israel. 
• The Blessed Hope - not too specific as to avoid the post, pre, a, pre-mid-post stuff - but Jesus sure return as our blessed hope would be great.
  
• The Covenants - That would be quite cool
• The Holy Spirit
  

Hara Estroff Marano has an interesting article on the Psychology Today web site about how American kids are being so babied, pampered and catered to that they are becoming wimps.  Soft, sissies, fragile little baby boys...

As a dad who is raising young kids at this stage in my life I realize how much of this is happening with kids.  Here is a world of purell sanitizer put on kids after every door knob, pads placed on every inch of the body just to ride a bike, and fear of failure pressed upon kids at every turn in the educational mess of many sectors of public education. Here are a few exerpts:

Behold the wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees or the occasional C in history. "Kids need to feel badly sometimes," says child psychologist David Elkind, professor at Tufts University. "We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn how to cope."

Messing up, however, even in the playground, is wildly out of style. Although error and experimentation are the true mothers of success, parents are taking pains to remove failure from the equation.

But taking all the discomfort, disappointment and even the play out of development, especially while increasing pressure for success, turns out to be misguided by just about 180 degrees. With few challenges all their own, kids are unable to forge their creative adaptations to the normal vicissitudes of life. That not only makes them risk-averse, it makes them psychologically fragile, riddled with anxiety. In the process they're robbed of identity, meaning and a sense of accomplishment, to say nothing of a shot at real happiness. Forget, too, about perseverance, not simply a moral virtue but a necessary life skill. These turn out to be the spreading psychic fault lines of 21st-century youth. Whether we want to or not, we're on our way to creating a nation of wimps.

A Nation of Wimps, Psychology Today, accessed 9/9/2006, emphasis added.

This article shows the results of the self-esteem, self-protecting, self-obsessed, self-help, self-inventing society.  The article has very telling statistics of how kids raised in this sort of culture are turning out when they hit the college campus.

I personally do not want to raise a bunch of wimps in my house.  To be honest I am praying two things for my new born son: 1) That he would fear and know the God of grace 2) That he will be tough to hold things down in a fallen and violent world. 

My personal concern is that the coming generations have nothing to die for and therefore they will have nothing to live for.  I long for my own kids to be able to echo that ancient truth:

As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  Philippians 1:20-21

It is a sad fact that the gospel to the modern world is "To live is to be safe, to avoid premature death, and seek self-centered security"  And this will produce nothing but girly-men who will not be able to protect the good in their communities.  Such civilizations will fall. 

Being a graduate from UNC Chapel Hill, this video about NC State confirms my long held suspicions about the people who roll under the sign of the Wolfpack.  Yet, I do love those RhettandLink Guys.

Additionally, you need to watch their - "Burgaz on the Beach" videos...too funny...too, too funny.  All the videos from Rhett and Link can be found here.

These guys are married, have kids, etc.  I remember them when they were Seniors in High School, playing in a band called the Wax Paper Dogs.   They were part of a "youth group" I was hanging with as a college guy and post graduate. 

Fun to see them grow up...well, sort of.  Did I mention that I love those RhettandLink Guys. 

It would not be right, however, for us to stay upon such low ground, for we preach the gospel, and not the law; we are bound, therefore, to rejoice because we feel the power of the blood of Jesus upon our own consciences, giving us peace and pardon in Him. Our joy will give life to our message. We have also tasted of the honey of communion with Jesus: we have not, perhaps, feasted upon handfuls of it, as some of our Samsons have done; but we have at least, like Jonathan, dipped the end of our rod into it, and our eyes have been enlightened, so that our hearers can see them sparkle with joy while we tell them how precious Jesus is. This gives emphasis to our testimony. When we speak as ministers and not as men, as preachers instead of penitents, as theologians instead of disciples, we fail; when we lean our head too much upon the Commentary, and too little upon the Savior's bosom; when we eat too largely of the tree of knowledge, and too little of the tree of life, we lose the power of our ministry. I am myself a sinner, a sinner washed in the blood, and delivered from the wrath to come by the merit of my Lord and Master;—all this must be fresh upon our mind. Personal godliness must never grow scanty with us. Our own personal justification in the righteousness of Christ, our personal sanctification by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, our vital union with Christ, and expectancy of glory in Him, yea, our own advancement in grace, or our own declension; all these we must well know and consider.

Tonight I was looking online to read some Chrysostom's ancient homilies on Philippians and I was treated to a great surprise. As I went over to the Christian Classics Ethereal Library I found quite a web re-design treat. A brand new version of the CCEL has been developed. It is a nice new site design which has drupal as its content management system.

If you are new to CCEL or have never read Chrysostom's straight forward exposition, it may be time for a venture into some of the old classics of the faith.  Read old dead guys - they have quite a bit to say to us in our times. 

If you are not sure what to read, their short list is a fantastic starter. I always find the beginning of St. Anselm's Proslogion to be a delight...

Enjoy! 

My friend Brian Petak tagged me with this one: 

• One book that changed your life: The Mind of God by Paul Davies.  This is the first spiritual book I read in college.  It has no view of God remotely close to the God I love and follow now - but it had me thinking about the beauty of the universe that led me beyond to the great I AM.
• One book that you’ve read more than once: I am not in the habit of reading and re-reading the same books (except Scripture).  But I will say that I have gone back to Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton, The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper and the preamble to The Proslogion by Anselm.
• One book that you’d want on a deserted island: I guess I would say a Bible.  Preferably not the TNIV.
• One book that made you laugh: Radical Reformission and Confessions of a Reformissionary Rev by Mark Driscoll - that dude is nuts and cracks me up.  Also, a philosophical treatise entitled On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt I found to be really funny...but you have to be a philosophy geek to get it.
• One book that made you cry: A recent biography I read about the life of Adoniram Judson entitled: Bless God and Take Courage: The Judson History and Legacy.
• One book that you wish had been written: A real Great Big Book of Everything. Yeah, but then who would have time to read it?
• One book you wish had never been written: Boy, this one could get someone in trouble...so I'll be rather safe and go with The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels.  
• One book you are currently reading: Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? A Professor and a Punk Rocker discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism and Christianity edited by Preston Jones
• One book you’ve been meaning to read: The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil - because he is spooky-smart and spooky-wrong about human nature and machine intelligence.
  

Go buy a bunch of these and give em away..

Spread the Word 

This time, you can create your own online league and play fantasy church - This is a trip...read the comments if you have a minute.

 

The generous souls at Desiring God just took things to another level.  I have always appreciated the pastors, ministers, and servants who choose to give things away to the public rather than to add to the financial portfolio with every download, article, audio or video message.  Now, I do not think it wrong that some charge for these things, but I just think it is very right, when possible, for people to give it all away.  In our age where technology greatly aids the distribution of resources, it is a great joy to see people use this to grace the church with quality free wares.  Desiring God, with a pay as you can, free sermons, articles, mp3s, has been a great example in our day.  Now, they have taken it to the next level with a great site design. 

The site's asthetics are very similar to the other version, yet with much cleaner lines and evolved graphics which have a contemporary but elegant sensibility.  The major improvements are in the areas of site design, usability, and navigation.  Two thumbs up.  Now they even have J. Piper's video sermons coming online.  

Many thanks to The Philippian Fellowship who has paid the bills.  We are grateful.  To see the new site - take the tour. 

Site Tour :: Desiring God