Tag Archives: Theological Musings

Challies and the Problogger

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I was combing through Google Reader, trying to catch up on my blog reading–I fell behind over vacation–and I found Tim Challies has an excellent interview with Darren Rowse up on his blog now:

My critique of Christian blogging is actually similar to my critique of much of what I see happening with the Church today – an overemphasis upon gathering together as believers – at the expense of ‘going into the world to make disciples’.

I came to a point where I saw incredible opportunity in blogging to ‘go’. People are gathering around the web through blogs to learn, build relationships, have dialogue, share their lives, talk about every aspect of their existence – but the majority of Christian bloggers that I knew at the time (including myself) were gathering together in our ‘Holy Huddles’ to do ‘Christian Things’.

I made a decision to spend more time focussing upon going and participating in what I saw happening outside of the ‘Christian Blogosphere’.

I subscribed to Rowse’s ProBlogger months ago, and I think his tips and articles are superb. It’s nice to see him getting more exposure in the Godblogosphere; or should I say it’s nice to see them finally catch on to what he’s doing. ;)

My brain usage profile: insights into how I blog

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Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to “catch up” with yourself.

…you can “size up” situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to “lose touch” with the immediacy of the problem.

Finally, someone understands me! You know, one of the reasons I don’t write more is because, just like this snippet of my brain usage profile indicates, I will rapidly take in a bunch of information, but when I go to organize it and classify it (this usually happens when I begin formulating a blog post), I grow agitated and uncertain–like the part of my brain that’s thinking is light-years beyond the part of my brain that’s typing, and it’s too late to catch up.

I’ve considered rambling into a cassette recorder and then transcribing and editing, but that seems like an awful lot of work. I dunno; I guess now that I’ve mentioned it here I’ll have to do it.

And hey, set aside a few minutes to take the test and see how your own brain works. It’s fun! Well, okay, it got a bit tedious toward the end. But it’s fun reading the results.

Family-to-Family: Any Personal Recommendations?

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I’m in Panera this morning, catching up on blog-related things and that’s how I learned about Family-to-Family.

It sounds pretty simple: a group of at least five families in one U.S. community (usually suburban) come together and “sponsor” families in a destitute community somewhere else in the country. Each month a participating family sends food, toiletries, etc. to the same family in need.

It sounds like a good idea, but I’d like to hear from folks who’ve checked it out more (I’ve just read the web site) or who are currently working with them. Specifically, I’m curious how far a new “chapter” can go in selecting the community they’ll sponsor. (I know if I were to do this, I’d want to at least have the possibility of being able to meet the folks we’re serving. It’s not necessary, but it would certainly be a “selling point” for me.)

Because of the relational focus, I think this is the sort of thing that would work well on a Care Group level rather than being a “top-down” ministry (that is, congregation-wide with a centralized administration).

A Poor Man Who Walks in His Integrity

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I was reading today’s ESV Daily Verse when I realized that money—especially the way Christians handle it—is kind of a pet topic for me. For example:

And now there’s this verse that says integrity and character are more important than a house, stock portfolio or retirement account. And that’s true. The lie would be if you said a poor man is better than a rich man, period. No, the point of this proverb is the same point Jesus made: namely, pursue holiness no matter the cost.

But are we really willing to do that?

Jailed for Abandoning Islam

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(Via Voice of the Martyrs and Compass Direct)

[IRAN] Seven years after Issa Motamedi Mojdehi converted from Islam to Christianity, Iranian secret police have jailed him for abandoning Islam, but officially charged him with illegal drug trafficking. Authorities formally charged the 31-year-old Christian with drug trafficking when he was arrested two weeks ago. Secret police officials have told Motamedi Mojdehi that his real offense, said to be recorded in his confidential legal file, is abandoning Islam. Officials told him unless he renounces his Christian faith and returns to Islam, he will remain in jail and possibly face execution. An officer identified only as Mr. Baghani warned the arrested Christian that it might take “several executions” before Iranians understand the consequences of apostasy under Islamic law.

Pray our Omnipotent Father will protect Issa from all harm. Pray he will be kept strong by the precious Word he has hidden in his heart. Pray the mercy of God will keep Issa faithful to His Lord and Savior.

We Will Die To Make Him Known

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John Piper sends out once a week or so what’s basically an e-mail devotional, called Fresh Words. The one I got today is titled, “Enemies of the Cross and How to Respond to Them,” and I highly recommend it.

Anyway, toward the end of it (yes, I’m spoiling the ending!) Piper says this:

“My greatest longing in response to this enmity is that Christians walk in the way of the cross. Yes, militant Islam is big and threatening. It may even be the true Quranic Islam. There are alarmists whose whole tone seems to awaken political and even militant responses from Christians. My concern is that as the church we distance ourselves from this kind of response and focus on the truth that we will never spread the Christian faith by the sword. Some Muslims may kill to spread their faith. Some Christians have. But it is not the way of Christ. It is not the way of the cross.”

Amen! I’ve also got a new candidate for my e-mail signature: “We will die to make [Christ] known. But we will not kill to make him known.”

The Voice of Your Brother’s Blood is Crying to Me

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I agree with Mr. Arnold: this is vile, ugly, and definitely worthy of the usage of “pissed” in describing how I feel after reading it:

In reading about various topic in bioethics, I came across this rather ominous sounding bit of Orwellian newspeak: “wrongful birth.” It’s kind of like “wrongful death,” but the exact opposite. It points to a rather elaborate counterfactual analysis of circumstances:

If a mother had known that her fetus [unborn baby] was afflicted with some incurable genetic “disease” (i.e., Down’s syndrome, cystic fibrosis, etc.), then she would never have allowed the pregnancy to continue its course and instead would have aborted [murdered in the womb] the fetus [unborn baby].

“Families” have sued doctors for wrongful birth, claiming that doctors should have provided them with information about certain genetic markers that portend to genetic defects or diseases, so that these “families” then could have chosen abortion [murder] rather than carrying the fetus [unborn baby] to term. I say “families” because can you imagine being in such a family? “Gee honey, we didn’t really want you but we got you anyway, so we’re gonna sue Dr. So-and-So for making us take you.”

Anyway, I’m sure there is some real philosophical argumentation to be done here, but I’m too pissed to do any right now. Maybe later.

And to think, these are the people who like to call fundamentalist Christians “nazis”? Sorry, we don’t tend to encourage mass murder… and last time I checked, “infanticide” and “genocide” bore more of a resemblance to each other than did “genocide” and “intolerance”.

I’m sick of selfish idiots.