Atlanta pastor Aaron Menikoff has some wise thoughts over at the 9Marks blog on a topic that many of us want to handle well but have little wisdom about: “I would be quite happy to preach about the purpose of sex in a Sunday morning service. When I say “happy,” I should add that it would be a privilege to address that because Scripture addresses it. Also, specific sexual sins can and should be addressed (thinking about your Proverbs sermons).... Read more
Found this in a poignant Christianity Today tribute to Henry written by his old friend Kenneth Kantzer. Henry’s “greatest failure” according to Kantzer, former dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, involved a failed plan for a “great Christian university”: “From his student days, Carl dreamed of a great Christian university modeled after sixteenth-century Wittenberg or Geneva. He dreamed of drawing the best and brightest young minds, preparing them, and sending them out to win the minds and hearts of men... Read more
New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert has just published “Why Are Americans Fat?“, a fun and somewhat morbid review essay of a number of recent books that tackle the national and international obesity epidemic. Here are some selections from the essay, followed by a few comments from me. (Picture: New Yorker) The state of the matter: “During the nineteen-eighties, the American gut, instead of expanding very gradually, had ballooned: 33.3 per cent of adults now qualified as overweight….she and her colleagues... Read more
1. This just in: fetuses have memories. If enough time passes, the personhood of fetuses will be a fact, one demonstrated by science. What will that mean for the pro-choice movement? (Picture: Gray’s Anatomy) 2. Mars Hill Church of Seattle has a cool program going: Redemption Groups. Love the attention they give to reaching lost people. So challenged by it. 3. TheResurgence has a nice series unfolding that features Collin Hansen’s reflections on the young, restless, reformed movement. This one... Read more
Purely for fun, I decided to do a fake Twitter day. This is a satire, but it’s not hard-edged. For fun. So here goes. The first and only Twitter entry of “owenstrachan”. I’m sure that at this point you’re holding your breath. Some events and persons have been created or edited for comedic effect. ***************** just kissed my wife and baby goodbye to go to work. I love them. 8:03am from web driving in car to work 8:04am from otowntwitter... Read more
From the Kairos Journal, exceptional commentary on how over ten years ago, Princeton ethicist Peter Singer acted against his own moral philosophy: “In 1998 amid much furor, Singer was appointed Professor of Bioethics at Princeton’s Center for Human Values. His controversial views on animal liberation and biomedical ethics, particularly his argument that euthanasia, infanticide, and abortion are not merely permissible in certain circumstances, but morally obligatory, have become prominent in both philosophical literature and the media. The author of over... Read more
Bruce Ware’s Big Truths for Young Hearts just clocked in at #287 out of every book sold on Amazon.com. That’s outrageous! The numbers are due in part to the book being featured today (and yesterday and tomorrow) on the radio program of Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Reviving Our Hearts. Click here for a transcript of today’s program. Here’s a selection from the conversation between Bruce and Jodi Ware and DeMoss: Nancy: Bruce, I think that a lot of people think of... Read more
Phil Ryken just published a piece from Ligonier’s Tabletalk at Ref21 that covers how John Calvin was a pastor-scholar. It’s a solid article worth reading. Ryken distills Calvin’s goal in preaching: “Calvin’s goal in all his preaching and writing was to teach the Word of God faithfully so that the Holy Spirit could use his words to bring people to saving faith in Jesus Christ and to help them grow in godliness. He knew that only God could do the... Read more
1. Happy birthday, Jean Calvin. Kevin DeYoung has some good words on this incredible man. 2. Charles Krauthammer suggests that President Obama’s latest foreign junket did not go as well as some might think. 3. The NYT covers efforts to create a list of registered yoga teachers. This one can be filed under ironically hilarious. 4. The Mars Hill Church blog has been running a series of testimonies that profile the conversions of members. Here’s a really good one. This... Read more
This looks like an interesting book: The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook. Not so much the sex part that seems a part of the story, but the founding of Facebook part. It’s out in mid-July 2009. Here’s a description: “Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends–outsiders at a school filled with polished prep-school grads and long-time legacies. They shared both academic brilliance in math and a geeky awkwardness with women. [O]ne lonely night, Mark hacked... Read more
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