iTunes 7, Zune, and Unboxing in the Amazon

        

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.

 

Also, Microsoft's annoucnement of the Zune and its specs have peaked some interest.  Especially the added WiFi and the ability to swap songs wirelessly with other Zuners.  Remember the division who produced the populary Xbox 360 are working on this thing, so don't write it off too quickly.

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?  

Logic and the Pope's statements on Islam

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.

Glory...

I just recently rewatched the movie Glory with Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman.  I wept way too many times as issues of race were so much on the forefront it was a bit overwhelming.  Two quotes really struck me.  The first by Broderick's character, the second by a soldier in the 54th regiment, the first all black regiment in the Union army of the Civil war.

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.

On Prosperity

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...

Article on Worship

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. 

Muslim Pinocchio

Al Mohler makes some interesting observations about Islam:

Link Hey -- When Did Pinocchio Become a Muslim?

The "New" Faces of Atheism

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) 

Some Fine Satire from Russell Moore

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. 
 

Little Thinkers and Big Theological Thoughts

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
  

A Nation of Wimps

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. 

Watch this movie trailer and take this quiz...

Watch this movie trailer and then weigh in on this quiz:

Tell us what family relation you see when you watch the trailer for Jesus Camp:

Like a distant Uncle who is a little crazy My brothers and sisters in Christ Maybe some relation, but I hope not Family? These people are freakin nuts

Current Results

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

 

I am almost finished reading a fantastic children's book called the Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. A friend of mine recommended the book and I ordered for future reading with my little girls.  From the glowing reviews and the video interviews I was expecting it to be a pretty good read.  What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer delight I have had reading this to my daughters. 

 

The story is about a pampered little toy rabbit named Edward Tulane (he would not like you to call him a doll) who is made of china and dressed in fine silk clothes.  His owner is a little girl named Abilene who loves him very very much.  Yet there is a problem with little Edward; he cares nothing for anyone but himself.  In fact he finds people to be a bore and is rather uninterested in anything but his own fine look and standing.  Yet then he goes on a very unexpected journey.

 

I do not want to ruin the story with too much of a summary so I will just recommend you read it to your kids.  I am not sure of the author's worldview, and perhaps their is a bit of sentimentalism happening, but the message is clear.  Redemption through love and grace is the path to redemption of Edward Tulane.  I still have to finish the book; we'll do that tomorrow night. If the last third of the book is anything like the first two thirds I will have to give Edward Tulane's Miraculous Journey a high five stars.

 

There is a great audiobook available through iTunes and on audible.com 

 

 

NC State and High Intelligence

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. 

One of My Favorite Quotes by Spurgeon

A Heart Prepared to Preach

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.

An All-Round Ministry – Addresses to Ministers and Students
Chapter 3 – Individuality, and Its Opposite
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Chrysostom on Philippians and the New CCEL

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! 

Tagged with the book Meme

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.
  

Spread the Word - ESV at that...

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

Spread the Word 

Challies has another funny up

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.

Desiring God Remix

 

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

For the True Star Wars Geek

Yoda Backpacks are for you!