Last week I posted about chocolate, and its health benefits, and a friend out in Hershey PA sent us some chocolate. (Something’s coming your way, brother.) This chocolate made the Cubs debacle tolerable… Read more

Peggy Noonan, in her excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal, makes a number of important points, two of which are that the media has done the Church a service because it was the media that brought this stuff into the light and that the victims are the children, the good priests and nuns, and the Catholic faithful. This, my friends, is not Catholic bashing; it’s responsible editorial journalism. Here are some good words of hers: In both the U.S.... Read more

It has been said often, and John Goldingay (Psalms, Vol. 1: Psalms 1-41 ) says it here, “Most of Scripture speaks to us; the Psalms speak for us.” Psalm 3 [after the jump] speaks for our complaints to God that yield, somehow and sometime, to trust and praise. Surrounded by enemies, the psalmist (here said to be David) trusts God when taunted by enemies. Humans sense at times that others don’t like them, and leaders can be driven to despair... Read more

Just in case you haven’t heard, there’s a big dustup right now over John Piper, author of the spiritual classic Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist , and this dustup is coming from those who normally defend him. John Piper has invited Rick Warren to his Desiring God Conference, and he’s explained some of his reasons, not the least of which is to get Warren to lay on the table how he combines his “pragmatism” (which is not a... Read more

It’s not often that you can get a group of front-ranking theologians and scholars together to discuss spiritual formation, spiritual theology and what “life in the Spirit” means. But the Wheaton Theology Conference in 2009 did just that and this volume is the result: Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective . The book has good scholars and some great topics, and it never strays from developing a theology of spiritual formation. Gordon Fee, Dallas Willard, Lawrence Cunningham,... Read more

There has been so much interest in this new Psalter, we’re posting this post again. I knew it would eventually be done, and it has: Paraclete has produced a beautiful NIV Psalter called: The Paraclete Psalter: A 4-Week Cycle for Daily Prayer .   I have used for years The Book of Common Prayer , and have an old copy with Coverdale’s translation. But we need an NIV Psalter, and now it’s available. Paraclete designed this Psalter to be used either... Read more

I like the new piece by Daniel Kirk about Easter theology — it’s from Christianity Today. Here’s a clip: The most important thing to say is somewhat shocking at first blush. At his resurrection, Jesus becomes something that he was not before. Jesus becomes the enthroned king of the world–the Messiah. But isn’t the Jesus we meet on the pages of the Gospels also the Messiah? Yes and no. Jesus in the Gospels is like David in the Book of... Read more

My new “Wedgie Award” will be given (mostly in fun) to folks who make comments that make us feel uncomfortable, and the first Wedgie Award is given to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, for his comments about the Catholic Church in Ireland: “An institution so deeply bound in to the life of society suddenly becoming — suddenly losing all credibility,” said Williams, the head of the Church of England. “That’s not just a problem for the church, it’s a problem... Read more

Let’s hear what the new (and very proud) owners of the iPad have to say about it? Read more