Thank the Lord! The book is done and has been published in Sheffield Phoenix Press’s New Testament Monographs series. The book is number 14 in the series, and the title is Articular Infinitives in the Greek of the New Testament: On the Exegetical Benefit of Grammatical Precision.As you can tell from the title, this book promises to be a real page-turner. I fully anticipate for my wife and me to be able to retire on the proceeds that I will receive from this blockbuster treatise. This book will likely be the surprise hit of the summer, and I expect it will be flying off book store shelves so fast it…
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Emerging Liberalism
Not a few critics of the emerging church have charged that the emerging movement often looks like made-over liberalism. While the charge is probably overly simplistic, there is nevertheless something that rings true about it.A recent essay by Walter Hengar in byFaith magazine explores the emerging movement’s outreach to old liberal protestantism. The essay is titled “More than a Fad: Understanding the Emerging Church.†In it Hengar writes: Emergent leaders who are eager to reconcile with liberal Protestants may soon find they have too much in common (source). If the Emergent Village podcasts are a reliable indicator, I would have to say that I think Hengar may be correct. In…
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The Gospel and Reformed Theology
When I was in seminary, a friend once told me that J. I. Packer’s introductory essay in John Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ was worth the price of the whole book. My friend was right. Packer’s essay has become somewhat of a classic among reformed evangelicals in North America and beyond. It puts in sharp relief the God-centered vision of classic reformed theology as it stands against the ever popular, man-centered Arminian point of view. One passage, however, from this otherwise outstanding essay raises a question in my mind about the gospel. Let me share the passage and then my question. Packer writes: According to Scripture,…
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Something I Will Never Get Over
It’s Memorial Day weekend, and there are many war movies being shown on television. Tonight, I am watching “Saving Private Ryan,†which I believe is probably the best WWII movie ever made (and I have seen many).Every time I watch this movie, I’m reminded of something I will never quite get over. In 1998, “Saving Private Ryan†was nominated for best picture along with “Life Is Beautiful,†“Thin Red Line,†“Elizabeth,†and “Shakespeare in Love.†Believe it or not, “Shakespeare in Love†won best picture and beat out “Saving Private Ryan,†to my lasting chagrin. Now you tell me, which movie has proven to be the classic and which one…
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Gandalf Says the Bible Is Fiction
Just in case you didn’t see this, I wanted to put it here. In a Today Show interview last week, Gandalf (a.k.a. Ian McKellen) said that the Bible is fiction. Matt Lauer asked the cast how they would have felt if the DaVinci Code movie had included a disclaimer at the beginning saying that the story was fiction. McKellen replied with the following: Well, I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction. I mean, walking on water, it takes an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie. Not that it’s true, not that it’s factual, but that it’s a…
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Enron Convictions: A Rush to Judgment
There has been a rush to judgment. But I’m not referring to a federal jury’s decision yesterday to convict former Enron chairman Kenneth L. Lay and his protégé Jeffrey K. Skilling (see Washington Post coverage). What I am talking about is a rush to condemn President Bush along with Lay and Skilling. I was going to write an essay yesterday warning readers that partisan Democrats and their accomplices in the media would try to make the Enron convictions a political issue. But Howard Fineman of Newsweek beat me to the punch in his online column: “Kenny Boy, Meet Brownie: The conviction of Enron’s founder marks another dark moment in the…
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The South Rises Again on American Idol
I’ve already theorized in an earlier post why southerners dominate the American Idol competition. Now that Alabama-native Taylor Hicks has won, the winning streak continues. Here’s the money quote from the Washington Post: Taylor Hicks, the 29-year-old Captain K ringer from Birmingham, kept up the South’s winning streak on the most popular television show in the country (source). “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton, Old times there are not forgotten . . .†Okay, I’ll stop gloating.
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First Human-to-Human Transmission of Bird-Flu
From the Washington Post: The outbreak in the North Sumatran village of Kubu Sembilang, was not only the largest bird flu cluster in the world but also the first in which investigators believe the virus was passed from one person to another and then to a third (source). From the New York Times: International health officials emphasized that laboratory tests from the family did not suggest that the A(H5N1) bird flu virus had mutated in any way that would allow it to spread among humans more readily, which scientists have said could set off a devastating worldwide pandemic (source). We will be watching this story very closely.
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Dixie Chicks Abandoning Dixie
My wife and I are fans of the Dixie Chicks–at least when they are not saying things that are so over-the-top offensive that we feel like joining the boycott. As many of you know, the Dixie Chicks have been on the outs with their fan-base ever since Natalie Maines zinged President Bush during a concert in London in 2003. But when I talk about offensive rhetoric, I am not talking about their politics. What I am talking about is reflected in some recent comments by Martie Maguire:
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Debunking Myths about the Iraq War
I’ve written much on the justice of the Iraq War, and about how people have misunderstood and mischaracterized President Bush’s rationale for war. Readers of this blog know how frustrated I get by the erroneous arguments that are often put forth by people whose real goal is to harm President Bush.For instance, on “Meet the Press†just this passed Sunday, Tim Russert’s questioning of Condoleeza Rice about the Iraq War was entirely premised on these kinds of erroneous arguments (see transcript). In today’s Wall Street Journal, Peter Wehner takes on these misguided critiques in the article, “Revisionist History: Antiwar myths about Iraq, debunked†(HT: Justin Taylor). You need to read…