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Review of Biblical Literature gets RSS
The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) is the professional guild for scholars of the Bible. The Society includes members from all over the theological, philosophical, and educational spectrums. SBL publishes two main periodicals: The Journal of Biblical Literature (JBL) and Review of Biblical Literature (RBL). RBL has recently reached the milestone of having published its 5,000th book review. In connection with this achievement, RBL is making its free access to book reviews even easier. RBL now has its own blog, where the reviews published each month will be listed for easy reference: http://rblnewsletter.blogspot.com/. Each book reviewed will be listed in a separate blog entry. The great thing about the blog…
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National Sanctity of Human Life Day
Today President George W. Bush declared January 18, 2009 as “National Sanctity of Human Life Day” (NSHLD). President Reagan began the tradition of designating this annual observance (which typically falls on the Sunday closest to the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973). One thing to note about the President’s action today. Reagan, Bush, and Bush all made the annual proclamation, while Clinton did not. Given his record of support for abortion rights, it is unlikely that Obama will continue the tradition during his administration. So this is probably the last presidential proclamation of NSHLD that we will see for at least the next 4-8 years. Here’s the entire…
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A Few Thoughts on Bush’s Speech
President George W. Bush addressed the nation in prime time tonight with a speech that lasted just over 13 minutes.
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Government Enforced Playoff for NCAA Football?
Like I said before, a playoff would be change that I can believe in. Here’s the lede from NBC Sports: “The incoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he will hold hearings and possibly subpoena NCAA officials, college presidents, players, coaches and athletics directors in an effort to force a playoff in Division 1-A football, USA Today reports.” Also from this story: “Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is moving forward with an inquiry into whether the BCS system violates antitrust laws.” Yes, that’s the Attorney General of Utah, the state that was perhaps most deleteriously affected by the BCS this year. I for one will…
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Obama To End “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tellâ€
Here’s the lede from the CNN.com story: “In an overlooked YouTube video posted on Friday, a spokesman for Barack Obama said the president-elect is committed to ending the policy that bars openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. armed forces.”
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More on the Gay Bishop at Inauguration
On Monday, I noted that President-elect Barack Obama has invited openly gay bishop Gene Robinson to pray at the inauguration. The New York Times reports on this selection and includes a brief interview with Bishop Robinson:
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Wright Misrepresents Piper in Interview
In 2007, John Piper wrote a book critiquing N. T. Wright’s views on Paul’s doctrine of justification. The title of that book is The Future of Justification (which you can download for free here). In 2009, N. T. Wright will have published his response (which I noted here and here). Today, Trevin Wax has an interview with N. T. Wright about his response to Piper (HT: Mike Bird). It’s an interesting interview, but it looks like Wright hasn’t responded too well to Piper’s work. Wright has several critiques of Piper’s views on justification that are quite simply incorrect. For example, here’s how the interview ends:
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Gay Bishop To Pray at Inaugural Event
President-elect Barack Obama got a lot of flak from his base when he tapped Rick Warren to pray at the presidential swearing-in ceremony. Warren was unpopular with some of the left-wing because of his support for California’s Proposition 8, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
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Bush’s Final News Conference
Bush defends his legacy in this final news conference with the White House press corps. It’s fascinating to hear his reflections on his own presidency.