Truth isn’t a club
While reading The Making of an Atheist I really started to think about what I’m going to call a “misapplied apologetic”. This is really just a nice way of describing “apologists” who beat people over the head with “truth”–it happens more than you think. It’s the sort of people that grab a hold of an idea, take it to be absolutely true (whether or not it is, though as far as they’re concerned, it is) and then proceed to tell everyone else how wrong they are. I suppose, like me, they forgot to read the end of 1 Peter 3:15. Two examples to illustrate what I mean; one of these examples is something of an in-house apologetic issue–the ‘YEC / Evolution’ debate. The other, is concerning a certain people group which the church has grossly mishandled.
I learned a long time ago that it wasn’t worth my time to … (Read more)
Avatar, Pagan Advertisement?
It’s surprising the things you’ll find on YouTube, and I mean that in a good way. (**Spoiler if you haven’t seen Avatar**)
I came across an excerpt from one of Mark Driscoll’s sermons (his most recent series on Luke) in which he gives a brief analysis of the ‘wildly popular’ movie Avatar. This is Driscoll at his most candid: Avatar is “the most demonic, Satanic film I’ve ever seen. How any Christian could watch that without seeing the overt demonism is beyond me”. Ouch. I have to say, though, that I agree with him. I ended up seeing Avatar a few weeks after release (the only time I could get tickets), and the one thing that really bothered me about the movie was the amount of religious animism. I wonder how many (Christians) will completely miss the world view being presented–that everything is interconnected, divine, and that the … (Read more)
Musical musings
Whether I’m writing an essay for school, or writing new content for here (well, or trying!) I almost always have some sort of music playing. I figure it wouldn’t be fair of me to keep these artists to myself, as it were. So, I’m going to share a few with you all (before getting back to my new post for this evening). All of these artists are from Candyrat Records (YouTube channel ‘rpoland’), the first three artists primarily finger pick, with the last (Steffen) playing something very jazzy and highly recommended. If you like any of what follows, check out their YouTube channel as there is a lot of good talent there.
Don Ross — Tight Trite Night
Antoine Dufour — Ashes in the Sea
Don Ross and Andy McKee — Ebon Coast
Steffen Schackinger — City Lights
Book Review: The Making of an Atheist by James Spiegel
Pages: 130
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Year: 2010
Author: James S. Spiegel
I first heard of James Spiegel’s book while browsing the EPS blog (Evangelical Philosophical Society) and coming across an interview he had done with them. The concept of the book is fairly unique amidst the recent spat of new atheist books (and theist replies). Where those books tend to focus on the intellectual and rational reasons for disbelief, Spiegel’s book proposes that this is more or less a smoke-screen; the real reasons for atheism are moral and psychological, rather than intellectual and rational. This question, “why do people choose atheism / why are there atheists?” is what Spiegel sets out to answer (and, I think successfully).
The book itself is fairly short at only 130 pages (I spent a little over an hour reading it through). It’s standard paperback construction and has a good feel to it. The presentation … (Read more)
McLaren, again?!
Well, I haven’t had the honor (if you can call it that) of reading Brian McLaren’s newest book (A New Kind of Christianity), though from what I’ve heard it’s essentially a vindication of everyone who believed(s?) McLaren to be teaching some very dangerous things (it might also cause some to reconsider the ‘heat’ they subjected D.A. Carson and others to). I recently came across a very good review of the book (and lengthy) from Kevin DeYoung, co-author of Why We’re Not Emergent. If you still aren’t sure about McLaren it’s definitely worth the read, he’s even assembled it into .pdf format.
You can find the review on Kevin DeYoung’s blog.… (Read more)
Gentle, Reverent Answers
Driving home from work yesterday, our local Christian radio station was broadcasting a sermon by Dr. Adrian Rogers on 1 Peter 3:15, a text I’m quite familiar with: “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence”. I’ll have to be completely honest about that last part, the part that says “with gentleness and reverence,” I had never really paid much attention to it until Rogers brought it up. For example, when I do quote 1 Peter 3:15 (which is quite often), I do so in the context of some discussion on whether or not Christians should engage in apologetics. What I end up quoting looks something like this: “always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you … (Read more)
Book Review: How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer
Pages: 265
Publisher: Crossway
Year: 1976 (2005)
Author: Francis Schaeffer
I wasn’t introduced to Francis Schaeffer until a few years ago, when on a particular forum his name was brought up with a recommendation to read the The Francis Schaeffer Trilogy, eventually leading me to read How Should We Then Live? I suspect I’ll review the former eventually, and probably book by book, but needless to say How Should We Then Live has been an invaluable book, especially in any course I’ve taken dealing with history and modern thought.
Schaeffer’s objective in this book was to outline how thought and idea shaped and molded culture, from Rome all the way to our present day (or, rather, his present day), presenting history as a continuous and unified flow. He then warns us where he sees our society heading and attempts to give us a solution, a way to change course. … (Read more)
Schaeffer
I’ve been re-reading Francis Schaeffer’s book How Should We Then Live in preparation for writing a review. While doing so I noticed that his video series (of the same title) had been uploaded to YouTube in it’s entirety. It’s definitely not HD quality nor is it flashy, but it is worth watching or given a chance for those who aren’t sure if they’re interested. Schaeffer was definitely unique in his ability to present the sum of history (up until his life time), showing how thoughts and world views impacted and shaped those cultures leading up to our own. I only first heard of him a few years ago in the four or five of his books that I’ve read, I can easily see why he’s highly regarded by Christian academics (even if they believe his analysis was flawed in this or that way).
Mystery and discontent
Over the course of this past week I had a discussion with a friend who mentioned that he noticed quite a few “well educated” Christians moving from a Protestant foundation to a more “traditional” foundation, by which I mean Anglicanism and even the Roman Catholic Church. It strikes me as comparable to — for instance — when a disgruntled Evangelical chooses to identify himself as a member of the emergent church in response to a lack of authenticity in one’s faith (as I understand one of the major reasons people are part of the emergent church). At this point I agree with my friends observation as I’ve had some experiences with it myself; I would ask why some of us are choosing to affiliate with denominations (or heresies, for those who are vehemently anti-Catholic) that in recent years have come to be frowned upon as needlessly traditional, theologically errant and … (Read more)
Denomination Wars
Effectively, there’s a very much down-played “civil war” happening (to a large degree) within Protestant Christianity. I suspect, in fact, that many would rather just call it a slight annoyance, something which given time will be remembered as nothing but a few disagreements. I don’t think this is the case at all, in fact, I think that if the current rifts (read: divisions) within Protestantism aren’t to a large part healed — though I don’t believe that means getting rid of differing denominations — then Protestantism will be it’s own death. While it probably isn’t the best comparison, Luther’s reclamation of Scripture has birthed its very own “monsters from the id” (from the science fiction novel Forbidden Planet)–for all the work “we’ve” done, we’ve gone and destroyed ourselves.
The problem, I think, is not so much that denominations exist as much as it is how most Christians identify themselves, … (Read more)
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