It’s been quiet around these parts for some time. Just wanted to pop back on here and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Side note: have you thought much about how the Gospels of Matthew and Luke use “Son of David” language in reference to Christ? I had not previous to this Christmas (like so many other biblical-theological themes sitting right under my nose). Just had the opportunity to preach on this in my home church, and I found it... Read more
From the Chicago Tribune: At 17, Harrison Barnes might not yet be a household name. But he’s determined to become one. Here’s a funny story demonstrating his precocity: Days earlier, when he announced where he would attend college, the nation’s top high school basketball player deftly fielded all manner of probing questions from a gymnasium full of reporters. This one seemed like a layup. How tall are you? “I’m 6-8 with shoes on,” Harrison Barnes said. Across the living room... Read more
Historical theologian Carl Trueman has a great post up on Reformation21 entitled, hilariously, “Fools Rush In Where Monkeys Fear to Tread” on the way in which Christians puff themselves up on the web and transgress traditional codes of humility and morality. (HT: Naselli) The whole thing is worth reading; here’s a snatch: Now, it is one thing to have others write commendations of you for a book cover or conference brochure – perhaps necessary evils in the cut-throat world of... Read more
This is a helpful comment for understanding the significance of the resurrection, especially as it relates to the atonement: [T]he Gospels…all agree that when the question was put to Jesus, “Are you the Messiah?” he did not deny it. It is in the context of those last days in Jerusalem that the royal title emerges publicly as a potential estimate of Jesus. On the basis of such a possibility, Jesus was executed as a messianic pretender. And for that reason... Read more
1. A buddy of mine tipped me off to this crazy Docker’s “Man-ifesto”. It’s actually really good. Readers of this agitated little blog will recognize some familiar themes. Clearly, folks in the culture beyond our Christian circles are seeing a major lack of testosterone in our society, and many problems related to this. Why you were surfing the Dockers website is another matter, Drew. Regardless, good looking out. Here’s the whole text. 2. Jonathan Leeman just wrote a “boring” post... Read more
Salon took a look this week at the Promise Keepers. It’s an interesting read. Here are some key quotations on the organization that rose to huge prominence in the 1990s and then tanked. Here’s the basic story: In the 1990s, the evangelical men’s ministry the Promise Keepers packed 50,000-seat football stadiums and even stuffed the Mall in Washington, D.C., with close to 600,000 sweaty, Jesus-loving males. Marshaled by Bill McCartney, a former University of Colorado football coach, the group took... Read more
David Denby, film critic at The New Yorker, just released his list of the top-ten films of 2009. Because I am an American, and thus am genetically predisposed to find top-ten lists interesting, I noticed it. Actually, it’s well worth looking at. Denby is a skilled critic. I like that he, with all TNY commentators, is stingy with his praise. I like stinginess. There’s not enough of it these days. With stingy people, you know when you’ve done well. With... Read more
Matt Labash of The Weekly Standard has a very funny piece up called “The Adventures of Low Impact Man”. Some of you have heard of Colin Beavan and his efforts to live what he calls a “low impact”, non-wasteful life. Labash takes him up on his challenge and writes an often hilarious and quite lengthy diary of his experience with the eco-friendly lifestyle (I’m on a kick here–what can one say?). While it is certainly a good thing to seek... Read more
Stephen Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC has just published a helpful overview of the documents related to the Climate Research Unit that hackers recently uncovered. I blogged about this last week, but this analysis, entitled “Scientists Behaving Badly” and found in The Weekly Standard, is a must-read for anyone who has invested time in thinking about climate change and whether the role of humans in it in our modern era demands sweeping reform and massive investment... Read more
1. Here’s a link to some excellent music by Peter Bradley Adams, formerly of the duo eastmountainsouth. Really–check this guy out. You can even get a free EP of Adams’s music if you want to test-drive it. 2. Have you seen the site scanwiches.com? Try looking at it without getting hungry. 3. Here’s a well-funded site, TCK (currently advertising in major media outlets) advocating for major investment in combating anthropogenic climate change. For those who wonder why I would question this cause,... Read more
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