james cameron’s intent

let’s ask the man what he intended with Avatar. my emphasis added below. the director with his star Zoe Saldana said that  “Avatar” — with its depiction of mineral exploitation on a distant planet and a cadre of trigger-happy mercenaries charged with instituting a scorched earth policy — is very much a political film. But [...]

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 like it when [...]

cohabitation data

via Allen James on his twitter feed, I read this article on the latest (2008) cohabitation data from the Census. An article in USA Today provides a sampling of data from a new federal study of unmarried young adults, showing that “49% of dating couples and 30% of cohabitors surveyed agree that ‘my religious beliefs suggest that [...]

new page

I took a post from last August and elevated it to its own page. Check it out sometime.

new polling on abortion

these are some very interesting numbers. A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves “pro-life” on the issue of abortion and 42% “pro-choice.” This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995. ….. The May 2009 [...]

christian themes in Science Fiction

Kathryn Jean Lopez pointed yesterday to this interesting City Journal article about religious themes in science fiction movies. here is a small excerpt, but go read the rest, especially if you like science fiction at all. What did happen? Not to Shmi, whose curious reproductive history the Star Wars movies also never bothered to explain, [...]

McDonald’s cappucino and football

Kevin DeYoung reminds us that Jesus came for Grimace and Hamburglar too with this video: Kevin adds: I mention all of this because so much that passes for spirituality these days is nothing more than middle class, 20something coffee culture. If you like jazz, soul patches, earth tone furniture, and lattes, that’s cool. But this [...]

our culture’s effect on our faith

Al Mohler is hitting on a very sensitive topic with this post. It is a more complete picture of the effect than the slice that I was looking at in my comments to this post. I said the following: Number 2, there is a basic misunderstanding of the important responsibility of church membership in this [...]

christians and culture

Carl Trueman is raising a contrary voice to the current fashion of cultural engagement in evangelical churches and doing it with style. This article holds together tightly and is not very amenable to slicing out a piece for a tease, but here is the introductory paragraph anyway. you really should go read the whole thing. [...]

the purpose of the church

this is what I was trying to say to cschande in the comments to this post. From Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics v.4.3.2 – The Doctrine of Reconciliation To sum up, we may say there is committed to it the gospel, I.e. The good, glad tidings of Jesus Christ, of the real act and true revelation [...]

Ed Stetzer on Suburban church planting

Ed was interviewed at sub-text regarding the challenge of church planting in a suburban environment. As usual, he had some interesting and useful things to say. I liked this three part answer to mistakes pastors make in the suburbs: First, they assume that nice shiny clean people have nice shiny clean lives. When you work [...]

Ligonier West Coast Conference

Outlines of various talks given at the Ligonier West Coast Conference are posted on the Ligonier Ministries blog. As you would expect, there is some challenging and excellent material being presented. The one on Postmodernism by Ligon Duncan caught my eye. Here are the three reasons Ligon gives for a Christian to “be informed” about [...]

again, you don’t replace something with nothing

here is the fourth installment in a sometimes series of posts. Mollie Hemingway has an excellent column on this phenomenon. Take some time this weekend and read it over. here is a tease: The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won’t create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far [...]

where we are.

according to George Barna, in 2001 8% of americans were evangelicals defined as follows: All Barna Research studies define “evangelicals” as individuals who meet the born again criteria; say their faith is very important in their life today; believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; acknowledge the [...]

Transparency is worth zero if you have no passion

Michelle Greer has a great post up about “transparency in marketing.” (warning, a mild expletive) Her point is that the latest marketing buzzword means nothing to a person/company that is bored with or dislikes their own product. Here is some of what she says but go read all of it: People are not stupid and [...]

thought for the day

Part of the quote from Todd B’s site. Tolerance is rightly seen as a virtue. But today what is often implied by the word is relativism, thinly disguised under the positive connotations of the word tolerance. If you do not toe the line to relativism you are branded as intolerant, which is not tolerated. There [...]

opposing frameworks

Jesus said that he came to bring life. To seek and to save those who were lost. to protect His sheep. The way of Jesus doesn’t allow partiality based on what the proposed recipient of grace brings to the table. Romans 5:6-8 says that Jesus died for us at the right time while we were [...]

Is it possible?

Is it possible to combine elements that the emerging church is using to connect with the culture, with correct doctrine? are they antithetical? or can they be complimentary and fill the gaps in each other’s approach? Must we choose one or the other? Here is a review of a performance of the Church Basement Road [...]

connecting with the culture

Newbigin in the quotes from my post below says that we, as Christians, should try to understand the culture from the point of view of the Gospel. In other words, we should be countercultural and have a different framework for viewing information than that of the rest of the world. Newbigin recognizes the partially subjective [...]

ruminations on moral philosophy

here are some of Jason Lee Steort’s ruminations on moral philosophy also known as Lessons From the Joker. go read it a couple or three times, think it over and then report back here to discuss the similarities of Steort’s pictures and those of Newbigin below. In case, you were wondering, yes, I do want [...]

Newbigin in the morning

I have been crashing on Newbigin this morning. Some deep thinking to get my mind going. A bracing shot of metaphorical cold water to the face as a wake up call. I first re-read his 1985 article/presentation “Can the West be Converted.”. This was one of the things that woke me up back five years [...]

two solid hits from RPM

Ramblin Pastor Man had some good ones up yesterday. First up was a link to a paper by Tim Keller and David Powlison about passing along bad reports about other people (a/k/a gossip). Well written and extremely practical instruction about Ephesians 4:29. Part of their conclusion is this: If you hear bad reports about other [...]

The Call

As believers in Christ, what is our calling? Jesse Phillips is asking a pointed question on the Catablog. here is the issue and the question: Some evangelicals believe it’s our duty to fight for righteousness in our nation, creating laws to help non-Christians follow God’s law. Other evangelicals believe that trying to restrain non-Christians or [...]

regulative principle of worship

Before yesterday, I had heard of the regulative principle of worship, but I hadn’t paid any attention to it. I knew that Timmy Brister had made it the number one question on the ask Mark Driscoll anything contest, but I had just casually read through the comments without paying attention. It was like somebody was [...]