Veterans Day

Veterans,
thank you so much for your service to this country.

HT to Veronique de Rugy from Normandy for whom Veterans Day has special significance.

This is the end of the line for the prosperity gospel

I wish that I could embed vimeo videos. you have got to see this 8.5 minute clip from The Global Conversation. It might make you sick, but you must watch it.
The Prosperity Gospel from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.
after watching that, don’t you hate the prosperity gospel as much as John Piper does?
[...]

a change of heart

interesting story of the conversion of a planned parenthood center director from providing abortions to pro-life. Probably everybody has seen this already, but just in case you haven’t, here it is.

hat tip to just about everybody that I normally read.

where we are

Christian Smith and Patricia Snell have written a book that looks fascinating. It is called Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults
at the link above you can read extended excerpts from the book and get a feel for what Christian and Patricia are doing therein. Take a look [...]

abortion as genocide

Margaret Sanger and her monstrous eugenic aspirations for abortion on demand appear to be bearing fruit.
Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available.
Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 [...]

Another hard one

Stand to Reason Blog found a place on the net called “The Abortioneers” which has since disappeared but remains visible in Google cache. Here is the paper abstract and information.
the article by L Harris is very interesting stuff. she acknowledges her deep ambivalence at performing abortions:

To reflect seriously on the question of how [...]

new First Things blog

there is a new blog in the fold at First Things. It is Evangel. Headed up by Dr. Russell Moore and written by him and several others including Justin Taylor and Joe Carter. Looks like a good one to check out.

gospel coalition

Kevin DeYoung and Justin Taylor have moved their blogs over to the Gospel Coalition’s site.
Here are their new digs:
DeYoung Restless and Reformed
Between Two Worlds

The only real question for believers

Matt Carter finished up the Blueprint series at Austin Stone Community Church yesterday. Please download all 5 of these messages and give them a listen.
At the beginning of yesterday’s message, Matt asked the only question really worth asking for believers. “Are we going to live the watered down version of Christianity [...]

Roles

An interesting phenomenon is occurring all of the sudden. Women are not as happy as they thought they would be in a society that is less bound by traditional roles for the sexes.
here is the study that provoked the outburst above.
and at First Things here are Mary Eberstadt’s thoughts about what is going on.
Two [...]

guilt and forgiveness

R.C. Sproul, Jr. on Cornerstones and Stumbling Blocks.
Here is the opening paragraph, but go read all of it:
Why do the wicked flee when none pursue? Guilt. Why do we by nature exchange the glory of the Creator for corruptible things? Guilt. Why do the nations rage, and the rulers take counsel together? [...]

global warming

if there is something about which the world has been certain (at least certain far left precincts of the world), it is that global warming is occurring and that it is man caused. the proposed remedy has been to wreck our economies and teach people to be satisfied with a lesser standard of living.
what [...]

ripple effects

I saw this interesting and strangely haunting story yesterday on one of the ripple effects of the worldwide economic downturn.
Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American [...]

more prosperity gospel

back to vitamin z for an update on Joel Osteen’s newest book.
check it out:

So, Joel Osteen sent us an email yesterday to let us know about his new book, It’s Your Time. Joel wanted us to know that we could achieve our dreams with his new book. That was the subject line, seriously.
Here’s more encouragement from [...]

the mechanics of a D&X

courtesy of Vitamin Z here is the deposition testimony of Dr. Carhart from the University of Nebraska about the particulars of his method of abortion.
Just read it, if you can, but I warn you that it is deeply disturbing.  This must stop.  there is more at the link above if you really want to see [...]

true believer

In Britain, an employment tribunal has officially ruled environmentalism to be a religious belief justifying protection by employment laws.
Senior executive Tim Nicholson claimed he was unfairly dismissed by a property investment company because his views on the environment conflicted with other managers’ “contempt for the need to cut carbon emissions”.
In the first case [...]

price of perpetual boyhood

Amy Holmes is wondering if there is a price for men to pay in their pursuit of perpetual adolescence. Inher post on The Corner she says about the death of DJ AM [Adam Goldstein]:
But consider: He died a 36-year-old millionaire with luxury homes on both coasts. No wife. No children. The quintessential boy-man. He [...]

powerful stuff

Timmy Brister posted this video “Choosing Thomas” and like he says it is worth the next ten minutes of your time.

somewhat related, Randy Alcorn talks here about the absolute necessity for Christians to have a well developed theology of suffering to avoid falling into serious error when something like the events [...]

group think

the inability to reconsider (or even see) built in assumptions is something that is very interesting to me about people. @texaszman pointed to this interesting article on twitter this morning.
check out this bit here:
My theory—call it the “Oakley effect”—is that really smart people often don’t know how to accept and react constructively to criticism.  [...]

Marriage

what is the point of marriage? If the only point of marriage is to be the highest expression of romantic love, then evangelical opposition to homosexual marriage is just mean. It would be mean to say to some people that their love is unworthy of expression in marriage while other people get the [...]

distraction from the Gospel

our enemy’s favorite play is the misdirection play. He doesn’t mind if a bunch of Christ followers get together to do “christian” things. He prefers that we stay huddled together in committees working out the details of the next building project or program designed to make ourselves more comfortable. he must especially [...]

coming attractions

courtesy of Jonathan Dodson, I ran across this post by Mark Driscoll and his recent encounter with ABC’s Terry Moran and the Nightline crew.
Sounds interesting. I wonder what the finished product will look like.
I sat down for about 30 minutes with Terry Moran and we talked about how idolatry underlies all sin, [...]

When Helping Hurts

Kevin DeYoung has put up a three part look at the book When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourselfby Brian Fikkert. It looks like a good book to read for guidance as we attempt to take on the job of loving people like we should love them.
When Helping [...]

how weird am I?

seriously, how weird am I?
I have been watching the dialogue between Mark Krikorian, Wesley Smith and Jonah Goldberg in The Corner with great interest. They are talking about vegans and vegetarians, morality and whether or not it is morally permissible to eat meat etc. Really good stuff and very interesting. [...]

more like this please

Chris Isaak knows his limitations. this is one of the best answers I have heard in a while.
Maybe you could draw on your student council experience to help sort out the enormous budget crisis in California. Any remedy for it? I don’t think we want a remedy for it. The less the government has [...]