Johnny and Chachi (founders of Get in Here Ministries) are back, and they have some “Killer Prayer Tips” to help improve your prayer life. My favorite is the advice about “unspoken” prayer requests. Very helpful.
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‘Gay Marriage’ in the Dictionary. So what?
Last week, the conservative news website WorldNetDaily reported that the latest edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary has revised its definition of the word marriage. In its online and print editions, the dictionary includes in its definition of marriage the following line: “the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage.” The WorldNetDaily report also references the above YouTube video and implies that the expanded definition somehow means that the dictionary’s publisher has taken sides in the current debate over same-sex “marriage.”
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How’s Your Bracket?
The first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament are now over, and there’s only one relevant question. How’s your bracket? More specifically, how many of the “Sweet Sixteen” did you correctly pick? I didn’t foresee Wake Forest’s first round loss to Cleveland St. (Did anybody?), so I was 15 for 16. Did anybody go 16 for 16? Here’s my updated bracket: Denny’s Picks R Da Bomb.
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CTR on Interracial Marriage
The most recent issue of the Criswell Theological Review has just been released, and its theme is interracial marriage. Essays treat themes such as the “curse of Ham” and “interethnic marriages in the New Testament.” Contributors include J. Daniel Hays, Craig Keener, Edwin M. Yamauchi, Russell D. Moore, and George Yancey. In his editorial, R. Alan Streett writes: “With the inauguration of President Barack Obama, a new era of race relations has begun in America. This child of a racially mixed marriage has captured the highest office of the land and the imaginations of people around the world. One cannot help but notice the complexion of America is changing. .…
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A New Theme Song
This is dedicated to a colleague of mine for whom this could very well be his new theme song. To protect the innocent, I won’t tell you the colleague’s name, but it rhymes with “muscle roar.”
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The scourge of the post-60s liberals
Robert George has a fascinating account of how Fr. Richard John Neuhaus went from being a celebrated liberal to a despised conservative. George calls him “the scourge of the post-60s liberals.” It’s a brilliant little essay, and you need to read it. Here are the first two paragraphs: ‘In the early 1970s, Lutheran pastor Richard John Neuhaus was poised to become the nation’s next great liberal public intellectual—the Reinhold Niebuhr of his generation. He had going for him everything he needed to be not merely accepted but lionized by the liberal establishment.
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N. T. Wright and Divine Narcissism
I was struck by a paragraph in N. T. Wright’s new book on justification that reveals a stark difference between the perspective of Wright and that of John Piper. The passage appears in the midst of Wright’s argument against Piper’s belief that the righteousness of God should be defined as God’s concern for His own glory. I will quote Wright at length and then add some of my own reflections:
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Obama on Leno
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March Madness, Baby!
It’s March Madness time, and I have two items to share on this the first day of the 2009 NCAA tournament. First is my bracket. My final four is Memphis, Louisville, Pittsburg, and North Carolina. And I’m picking Louisville to win the whole shebang. Second is a YouTube of what is perhaps the greatest clutch play in NCAA Tournament history (even though I’m not a Duke fan). Laettner’s performance in this game was off-the-charts. He was 10 for 10 from the field, and scored this last minute game-winning shot. Though it is not remembered with fondness here in Kentucky, this was a game for the ages.
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Brian McLaren Comes to Louisville
Pastor Brian McLaren came to Louisville this week, and his appearance at the Presbyterian Seminary has made the local paper. McLaren appeared with Diana Butler Bass and Marcus Borg at the seminary’s annual Festival of Theology. There’s not really anything new here that we didn’t already know about McLaren, but it’s worth taking a look at the reporter’s description of what he said.