My best friend of 22 years, Barry Joslin, has a new blog, on which he has posted a favorable review of a certain book (a book whose name I don’t want to mention seeing as how I don’t want to appear self-serving, though please don’t expect me to direct your attention to any negative reviews of said book ).Go check out Barry’s new site. As the kids say, it’s da bomb!
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Newsweek Promotes God’s Girls
In an article titled “God’s Girls,” Newsweek magazine reports that many major Christian Churches are behind the times in promoting women to the highest levels of denominational leadership. Women make up 61 percent of all Americans who attend religious congregations, but they still struggle for their place in some denominations. A national study led by researchers at Hartford Seminary found that only 12 percent of the clergy in the 15 largest Protestant denominations are women. And some 112 million Americans belong to denominations that don’t ordain women at all, including Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Southern Baptists, Mormons, Muslims and Orthodox Jews (source). Is Newsweek really suggesting that the high…
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Who do Wiccans worship?
There’s an interesting item in today’s Washington Post about a soldier killed in Afghanistan who was a Wiccan. The fact that a veteran’s cemetary is not letting his widow put a pentacle (a pagan symbol, pictured right) on his memorial is a controversy in itself.But what jumped off the page to me in the Post article was it’s description of Wicca: Wiccans still suffer, however, from the misconception that they are devil worshipers. Some Wiccans call themselves witches, pagans or neopagans. Most of their rituals revolve around the cycles of nature, such as equinoxes and phases of the moon. Wiccans often pick and choose among religious traditions, blending belief in…
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Where Atrocity Is Normal
Patrick Stone’s essay in Christianity Today is powerful and poignant. In “Where Atrocity Is Normal: Understanding Christian soldiers who have seen the horrors of war,” Stone recounts his own experience in Vietnam and reminds us of the atrocities of war and the impossible moral choices that face Christians who participate in them.Not only are the war stories tragic, but so also is his description of what his experience has been since coming home from Vietnam: Following my return from Vietnam I spent most Sunday mornings in a church pew wondering, “What does this have to do with what I saw and did in Vietnam?” . . . Since leaving Vietnam…
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Review of The Last Word by N. T. Wright
N. T. Wright. The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. 160pp. $19.95. I appreciate Bishop N. T. Wright’s willingness to address the church through writing popular books. Wright is the consummate scholar and is perfectly capable of producing the kind of work that would only be accessible to specialists in the field of New Testament studies. Yet over the years he has included among his prolific output books addressed to the interested layman. His recent short work, The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture, is one such book.
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Al Mohler and the XXX ‘Church’ on ABC News
Just to follow-up on my previous post about the XXX ‘Church,’ I wanted to let you know that Dr. Albert Mohler was included in a segment on ABC News about the so-called XXX ‘Church.’ You can read the story here, or watch the video here.
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XXX ‘Church’ Is Back in the News
The XXX ‘Church’ is back in the News this week. I wrote a series of posts on the XXX ‘Church’ last summer and questioned the wisdom of attending porn conventions in order to do evangelism.On Wednesday, Dr. Albert Mohler raised the same question about the XXX ‘Church’s’ ministry methods at this summer’s erotica convention in Los Angeles. On the program, Dr. Mohler said, “I can tell you, I don’t think I could be at this convention without sin. Think I can pretty much promise you that” (source).
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Just When I Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse than the fact that the Mavs lost last night, I came across this story in the Dallas Morning News: “Pastor turns service into pep rally for God, Mavs.”Apparently, this pastor in this Dallas area doesn’t know the difference between a worship service and a pep rally. Can you guess what his justification is for profaning Sunday morning worship? It’s pretty predictable. “We put God in a box. Why can’t we bring life into the house of worship? More people will come to church if you have these kinds of things.”
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It’s a Baptist Thing, and E. J. Dionne Doesn’t Get It
Actually, it’s not just E. J. Dionne who’s offering an incorrect analysis of Frank Page’s election to the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Dionne and others are mistaking the dark horse for a trojan horse that would signal the beginning of the end of the conservative movement in the SBC. In a Washington Post editorial today, Dionne writes: Page’s upset victory could be very significant, both to the nation’s religious life and to politics. He defeated candidates supported by the convention’s staunchly conservative establishment, which has dominated the organization since the mid-1980s. His triumph is one of many signs that new breezes are blowing through the broader evangelical…
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TIME Magazine Credits Bloggers for New SBC President
Have you seen TIME Magazine’s analysis of Frank Page’s election to the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention? Here’s the headline and the lead of the story written by David VanBiema: The Bloggers’ Favorite Southern Baptist: The upset victory of a non-anointed candidate to lead America’s largest Protestant denomination signals the growing power of online activists, even in old-line churches . . . For those who follow the internal politics of the Southern Baptist Convention . . . the most interesting news out of their annual meeting, held this week in Greensboro, N.C., is that bloggers elected a president (source). I don’t think that this analysis of the election is…