Just had a few thoughts from yesterday’s piece that covered the Atlantic Monthly article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The article is, I think, a good wake-up call for those of us who frequently browse the Internet. In particular, I think that it encourages us not to compartmentalize our lives. By this I mean that we should not think that our Internet usage is cordoned off from our spiritual lives. What does this mean on a practical level? Let me... Read more
Nicholas Carr of the Atlantic Monthly has recently written a must-read piece on the suspected effect of Internet usage on one’s mind. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” includes a number of provocative selections, including the following, each of which I’ll comment on. The author’s current struggle to concentrate—“Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling... Read more
This past weekend, the New York Times magazine featured a startling piece called, simply, “No Babies?” by writer Russell Shorto. The very long and engrossing article spans ten pages (in a web sense) and includes the following notable quotations and ideas. The plummeting global birthrate– “[A]round the world, even in developing countries, birthrates have plummeted — from 6.0 globally in 1972 to 2.9 today — as populations have shifted from rural areas to cities and people have adopted urban lifestyles,... Read more
1. Here’s a PDF copy of the 9Marks eJournal I mentioned yesterday. It’s on marriage and pastoral families. A terrific issue, as I said. Thanks, Z, for the note. 2. Did you miss the audio download from the 2008 Band of Bloggers session? If so, here it is. Some of the best commentary from Christians on blogging that I’ve heard. 3. A Nashville church recently hosted a conference on the church and theology. Speakers included D. A. Carson, Tim Challies,... Read more
The new issue of 9Marks looks very helpful. It covers a variety of topics including marriage, being a pastor’s wife, and books on marriage. I have a brief review of Danny Akin’s book God on Sex in this issue. Here are a few highlighted resources from the latest journal. This is a long list of evangelical books reviewed by a wide variety of contributors, including Tom Schreiner, David Powlison, Justin Taylor, and Jim Hamilton. This will be one of the... Read more
Everything new is old again. So is the case in certain American schools, which are overturning sacred modern educational ideology by re-instituting special classes for below-average students. In “Holding Back Young Students: Is Program a Gift or a Stigma?“, Winnie Hu briefly reports on this trend and shows how it is igniting a firestorm among educators who have long rejected the traditional idea that students should be, in some cases and in certain subjects, educated according to their intellectual level.... Read more
The daughter of feminist poet and writer Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker, penned a revealing piece in London’s Daily Mail today (HT: Challies). The following quotations from the piece shed much light on the practical effects of feminist ideology. They are, in sum, quite tragic. Walker is not a Christian, and she lives with her child’s father, but “How My Mother’s Fanatical Views Tore Us Apart” is nonetheless worth reading. How Walker’s mother saw her– I was 16 when I found... Read more
From Paul Buckley in Methuen, MA (check out his excellent, Christ-exalting blog)– “I pastor a Sovereign Grace Ministries Church in New England, King of Grace Church. Thanks for your encouraging post! Pastoring in New England has been a wonderful adventure of learning to glory in Christ and the precious folks he does give us and not in our relative church size. It is one thing to say I am pastoring for God’s glory, it is another to be tested with... Read more
1. I don’t know if you saw this from a few days back, but a New England pastor named Josh left a moving comment on my blog about small churches. Here it is in its entirety: “I am a New England pastor, and I would wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. The pastors in my association are good men who devote a lot of time to their people. Most of us are bi-vocational, because our churches are too small to pay... Read more
The following quotations are from the latest Crossway “Book Report” (HT: JT). They include very helpful statements. Of course, these statements only scratch the surface of the topics covered. If you want to read more about the current state of atonement theory and the biblical case for penal substitution as the central motif of New Testament atonement theory, I would heartily recommend both In My Condemned He Stood by Packer and Dever and Pierced for Our Transgressions by Brits Jeffery,... Read more
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