• Theology/Bible

    Daniel Wallace Debates Bart Ehrman

    On October 1 of this year, Daniel Wallace debated Bart Ehrman for the second time over the reliability of the text of the New Testament. The event was held at Southern Methodist University before the largest gathering ever to hear a debate over the New Testament text. A DVD of the event was produced by a film crew using four HD video cameras. It’s just over two hours long, and it really lays out the issues well. A trailer for the video is above. You can purchase the full video from The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. This is a great resource that you will want to…

  • Sports

    Farewell, NBA

    It looks like the NBA has just been blown-up. Unless the courts intervene, we can probably say goodbye to the 2011-2012 season. The NBA Humpty Dumpty is broken apart right now, and all the kings horses and all the kings men are going to be hard-pressed to put him back together again. Here’s the story from The New York Times: Faced with a deal it could not accept, and a negotiating process that had reached a dead end, the National Basketball Players Association elected to disband Monday afternoon, thrusting the N.B.A. into chaos. The prospect of reviving the 2011-12 season now rests with the courts. Read the rest here.

  • Culture,  News

    Remembering Dick Winters, American Hero

    When I think about the definition of leadership, heroism, and bravery, I think about Dick Winters. He was the best of men. I noted earlier this year when he passed away at age 92, but I missed this excellent article about him that came out on Veteran’s Day. I am glad to read it a couple of days late and thought you might want to see it too. Here’s an excerpt:

  • Sports

    David Brooks on Penn State and Evil

    On Sunday’s “Meet the Press” David Brooks spoke in a way that you don’t hear very often in mainstream media outlets. He talked about the reality of evil and how few contemporary people have the moral resources to to do the right thing in a difficult situation.

  • Sports

    Circling the Wagons?

    The video above is an episode of ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” from 2008. It is a report about off-field crimes committed by Penn State football players. What caught my eye in this report was not the behavior of the players, but the interviews with Coach Paterno and President Spanier. Even back then, there seemed to be a circling of the wagons. The President’s last words were telling. He was not nearly as concerned with the crimes committed as he was with the bad press that Penn State had gotten for their players’ crimes.

  • Book Reviews,  Christianity

    The Dragon’s Tooth on “All Things Considered”

    N. D. Wilson is a great writer, and he has a new novel out titled The Dragon’s Tooth. He was interviewed recently on the NPR program “All Things Considered,” and you can listen to the audio below or download it here. [audio:http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2011/11/20111110_atc_08.mp3] The book is fantasy-fiction on the order of C. S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia.” According to the report, here is what the book is about:

  • Sports

    A Good Night for College Football in Louisiana

    It was a good night for college football in the Bayou State. My Louisiana Tech Bulldogs beat Ole Miss in Oxford to improve to 6-4 on the season and to become bowl eligible. Ole Miss is in the doldrums this year, but it is still nice to see the Dawgs get a win over an SEC opponent. The Bulldogs are number 2 in the WAC right now. We face the number one team, Nevada, next Saturday in Reno. It will be a big game, and I’m confident that the Bulldogs can pull out the win. We have not won the WAC since our first year in the conference in 2001.…

  • Christianity,  Culture

    Thom Rainer on the Penn State Scandal

    Thom Rainer has a really helpful article about the Penn State scandal. He speaks what should be common sense: It is inconceivable to me that someone could witness sexual abuse and then simply report it and leave it to their supervisors. The right response is to intervene by force at the moment, and with the police immediately thereafter. The rest of this article has some practical advice for churches to help them protect children against predators: