December 2010
60 posts
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Quote of the Year
“Yes, people watch too much TV and play too many video games and spend too much time on the Internet and what-have-you. But the proper response to our media over-saturation is not a rigorous attention to the explicitly ‘spiritual’ in every margin of life. Be a Christian, not an ascetic. Don’t be lazy, but realize that Jesus Christ did not die and rise for you so that you...
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To My Fellow Atheists: Enlighten Up →
“Which brings me to the problem with modern atheism, embodied by the likes of Harris and Hitchens, authors of ‘The End of Faith’ and ‘God Is Not Great,’ respectively. So often it seems like a conversation ender, not a conversation starter. And the loudest voices of today’s militant atheism, for all their talk of rational thought, don’t seem to want to do...
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Wired Gadget Lab's Top iPhone/iPad Apps →
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WatchOld Bon Iver: “Flume” Live
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Quotes of the Day
“My wife and I are both artists. Part of the luxury of being an artist is that you not only can but kind of have a responsibility to think long and hard about things on behalf of those who might listen to your music. You can give them a jumping off point for subject matter that might be too tangled for most people in the busyness of their daily lives. I think there are a lot of smart people...
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We Have What the Universe is After
Kevin DeYoung:
Do not think that salvation comes to sinners because God has a cosmic purpose for the universe and individual sinners happen to be a part of that universe. The movement of salvation is not from everything to individuals, but from individuals to everything. Don’t mistake regeneration, redemption, and adoption as byproducts of the larger work God is doing to restore creation. That...
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The French Are Opting For Civil Unions
Joe Carter points to a piece this morning in the NYT on the French and their abandonment of marriage as an institution. One of the primary motivations? Marriage is too Christian.
In addition to their practical advantages, she said, civil unions are ideologically suited to her generation, which came of age after the social rebellions of the 1960s. “We were very free,” she said. “AIDS...
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Quote of the Day
“If God did create multiple universes, Collins and Cleaver claim, he likely populated more than one.
“‘I’ve always had problems perceiving the infinite God that we believe in [as] creating life in just one spot,’ Cleaver says. ‘Over the entire past and future of humankind, there’ll probably be no more than a few hundred billion humans to interact with God...
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Bible Reading Plans
Now is the time to get that Bible reading plan ready to go that you’ll follow assiduously for three months and then slowly quit. I will likely use the M’cheyne Plan again. But this one is really cool and this one looks to be a great chronological plan. Maybe this will be the year you devote 30 minutes in the morning (or evening) to worship and honor God!
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Headline of the Day: Catholic Theologian Rejects... →
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Quote of the Day
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Christian Kids Should Be Prepared
Doug Wilson, on whether or not Christian kids should attend secular schools:
Once they are prepared for what they will encounter, I have no objection. But that preparation has to consist of a Christian education. Some students are ready for a secular university after receiving a Christian primary education. Some are not. Students in secular settings have to be equipped to have more of an impact...
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Top Five Viral Videos of 2010
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Top 5 Books I Read in 2010
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Whose Wrath Would You Rather Face?
D.A. Carson, on the utterly terrifying picture of hell painted in Revelation 14:
So whose wrath would you rather face? You will face one or the other. Would you rather face the wrath of Satan, or the wrath of God?
The Lord Jesus taught us that the person to fear is the One who can cast both body and soul into hell (Matt. 10:28). Few passages are more terrifying about that prospect than...
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The Only Source of Joy
Charles Wesley, from ‘Thou Hidden Source of Calm Repose’:
Jesus, my all in all thou art My rest in toil, my ease in pain The healing of my broken heart In war my peace, in loss my my gain My smile beneath the tyrant’s frown In shame my glory, and my crown In want my plentiful supply In weakness my almighty power In bonds my perfect liberty My light in Satan’s darkest hour...
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Best Sports Moment of the Year
The “breathtakingly exciting” goal in the 2010 World Cup by Landon Donovan.
In Spanish:
The world’s reaction:
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The Love of God Seen in the Cross
D.A. Carson:
Christians have learned that when there seems to be no other evidence of God’s love, they cannot escape the cross.
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Good News: I Own 3 of the 50 Top Pitchfork Albums →
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Stop Looking at Porn, A to Z →
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Jeff Bridges, Marriage Guru
This made me smile:
Veteran actor Jeff Bridges has said in an interview that the longer his 33 year marriage goes on, “the better it gets”.
And the Hollywood superstar has described the secret of a long marriage as “not getting divorced.”
“It’s practice”, he said.
In an interview in last Saturday’s Telegraph magazine, Bridges confided that, when he first considered marriage to Susan...
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Contra Condoleezza Rice on Abortion
CT put out an interview with Condoleezza Rice today and, thankfully, asked her about her position about abortion. Listen closely to her answer:
Was there a time when you came to a place on that issue, where your faith informed your position on abortion?
I’m still coming to terms with it. I don’t like the government involved in these really hard moral decisions. While I don’t...
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What You Have Belongs to the Poor
Basil of Caesarea, quoted in Nick Wolterstorff’s Justice: Rights and Wrongs, Kindle location 1453:
That bread which you keep, belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your possession, to the shoeless; that gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you were able to help others,...
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Christianity is About Facts
J.C. Ryle:
Christianity is a religion built upon facts. Let us never lose sight of this. The first preachers did not go up and down the world, proclaiming an elaborate, artificial system of abstruse doctrines and deep principles. They made it their first business to tell men great plain facts. They went about telling a sin-laden world, that the Son of God had come down to earth, and lived for...
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Dude →
“86 hours, 6 minutes and 41 seconds.”
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What About Homosexuality?
I have been watching Tim Keller’s new DVD of discussions he had on camera with non-Christians. They were conversations surrounding his book The Reason for God. Of course it is wonderful, though each segment could be hours longer and it would be nice to see Tim interact with people not so well educated.
At one point, in a larger discussion on the rules Christianity impose, a woman asked...
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Dude →
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Quote of the Day
“In recent years it has become popular to sketch the Bible’s story-line something like this:
Ever since the fall, God has been active to reverse the effects of sin. He takes action to limit sin’s damage; He calls out a new nation, the Israelites, to mediate His teaching and His grace to others; He promises that one day He will come as the promised Davidic king to overthrow sin and death...
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Poverty is a Complex Phenomenon
Tim Keller, in Generous Justice, on the roots of poverty according to the Bible (Kindle location 530):
Poverty, therefore, is seen in the Bible as a very complex phenomenon. Several factors are usually intertwined. Poverty cannot be eliminated simply by personal initiative or by merely changing the tax structure. Multiple factors are usually interactively present in the life of a poor family....
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Duuuude →
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Mormon Parents Are Owning Us
Fascinating review today over at the Weekly Standard on Kenda Deen’s new book, What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. Deen argues that the true belief system of Christian teens is MTD, or Moralistic Therapeutic Deism:
The content of that faith is simple and as American as a smile in an airport. The tenets of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) include belief...
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Don't Demonize Santa, Redeem Him
Mark Driscoll:
[A]s the parents of five children, Grace and I have taken the third position to redeem Santa. We tell our kids that he was a real person who did live a long time ago. We also explain how people dress up as Santa and pretend to be him for fun, kind of like how young children like to dress up as pirates, princesses, superheroes, and a host of other people, real and imaginary. We...
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Doing Justice Because the Old Testament Says To
Tim Keller, in Generous Justice, on being careful not to dismiss the Old Testament’s call to do justice because by doing so we are actually dismissing the very nature of God (Kindle location 399):
We should be wary of simply saying, “These things don’t apply anymore,” because the Mosaic laws of social justice are grounded in God’s character, and that never changes. God often tells the...
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The Culture War, Education and Abortion
Ross Douthat has written a few pieces recently on the recently released study “The Retreat from Marriage in Middle America” that are illuminating, especially with respect to the notion that culture war issues (e.g. pre-marital sex, ease of getting divorced) always fall along lines of the less educated and more educated.
The “Retreat from Marriage” report suggests that this frame held up more...
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10 Things that Matter in Choosing a Church
Josh Harris, in Stop Dating the Church:
In this a church where God’s word is faithfully taught?
Is this a church where sound doctrine matters?
Is this a church in which the gospel is cherished and clearly proclaimed?
Is this a church committed to reaching non-Christians with the gospel?
Is this a church whose leaders are characterized by humility and integrity?
Is this a church where...
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Being a Christian means Doing Justice
Tim Keller, in Generous Justice, Kindle location 359:
[I]f you are trying to live a life in accordance with the Bible, the concept and call to justice are inescapable. We do justice when we give all human beings their due as creations of God. Doing justice includes not only the righting of wrongs, but generosity and social concern, especially toward the poor and vulnerable. This kind of life...
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WatchTracey Morgan Explains the “Love” Between Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.
He really loves Star Wars:
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Should Christianity Be Blamed for Torture?
Nope.
Karl Giberson:
Both secular and religious institutions employed torture. The popular impression that it was primarily a religious activity indicates the success of the anti-religion culture warriors telling their sensationalized version of history. The reality is that secular torture was far more common, with far crueler and more ingenious techniques than its religious counterpart. This...
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What Faith Is Not, and Is
Greg Gilbert, in What is the Gospel, Kindle location 933:
Faith is not believing in something you can’t prove, as so many people define it. It is, biblically speaking, reliance. A rock-solid, truth-grounded, promise-founded trust in the risen Jesus to save you from sin.