This dude, Bill Donohue (president of the Catholic anti-defamation squad, the Catholic League and possibly brother to Phil? I just made that up)–he seems really fired up over the The Golden Compass which opens in about a week’s time. Peep:

Source: http://catholicleague.org/videos/
HT and further reading: Ben Witherington

I’ve often wondered whether Mormons use evangelical Christian resources? John MacArthur study Bible? The purpose driven life?

Do any evangelical Christians use (seriously) their material for edification?

From Bernard of Clairvaux ’s (1090-1153) On Loving God

“In his death he displayed his mercy, in his resurrection his power; both combine to manifest his glory.” (III)

“O wretched slaves of Mammon, you cannot glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ while you trust in treasures laid up on earth: you cannot taste and see how gracious the Lord is, while you are hungering for gold.” (IV)

“If you have not rejoiced at the thought of his coming, that day will be indeed a day of wrath to you.” (IV)

“I know that my God is not merely the bounteous Bestower of my life, the generous Provider for all my needs, the pitiful Consoler of all my sorrows, the wise Guide of my course: but that he is far more than all that. He saves me with an abundant deliverance: He is my eternal Preserver, the portion of my inheritance, my glory.” (V)

“Reason and natural justice alike move me to give up myself wholly to loving him to whom I owe all that I have and am. But faith shows me that I should love him far more than I love myself, as I come to realize that he hath given me not my own life only, but even himself.” (V)

“If you should see a starving man standing with mouth open to the wind, inhaling draughts of air as if in hope of gratifying his hunger, you would think him lunatic. But it is no less foolish to imagine that the soul can be satisfied with worldly things which only inflate it without feeding it.” (VII)

(Numbers at the end are chapter numbers. Read Latin? I’ll give you a dollar if you read Bernard’s complete works.)

Our SEBTS president, Dr. Akin, emailed to the student body and posted on his website the paper he delivered at the SBC Building Bridges Conference this week entitled “Answering the Call to a Great Commission Resurgence.” I’ve yet to give it a gander, but can guess where he’s going to go with it and am interested to hear comments on it and the Conference in general around the blogosphere. It seems like Timmy Brister’s blog is a good place to keep up with things and download MP3s and PDFs of the presentations.

Here are links to Akin’s paper:
PDF
Online (Google Documents)

In the middle of the American Civil War President Lincoln found it meet to establish as a national holiday that Thursday in November which since 1863 we have celebrated as Thanksgiving. The following is his Thanksgiving Proclamation calling the nation to give thanks and “praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens” starting in November of that year, 1863. Note the proper, reverential place given God, especially where it reads, “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful Providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

A new study says some alcohol OK for pregnant women, or so says the news. Referencing “the British research,” the news video goes on to say that new research suggests that it may be OK for pregnant women “to occasionally overindulge in a night of drinking.” Apparently their tests show that a-once-in-a-while binge doesn’t hurt a fetus.

One woman off the street who also happens to be six months pregnant sounds off on the issue, after the reporter confirms that the lady believes it’s OK to have a drink every now and then while pregnant. Her reasoning? “I grew up in Europe and so they’re a little bit more lax about it over there…so it doesn’t seem like too big of a problem to me.” Let me get this straight: it’s OK to drink while pregnant because Europe is lax about it; therefore no problem. Right.

The very next interviewee is a doctor. His (professional) opinion? “There is no safe amount of alcohol during pregnancy.” But, Mr. Doctor, they’re lax about it in Europe.

The closing remarks by the reporter are telling. “Doctors say that no alcohol at all would be the recommendation…but restrictions are tough, so the occasional beer or glass of wine…every couple of weeks…probably will not hurt the fetus.” Let me get this straight: let’s disregard the people who know what they’re talking about (doctors), because, hey, restrictions are tough and we will probably not hurt our unborn child. What!

This seems to be similar to the abortionists cry that it’s a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body even if it means that the unborn child she carries dies. After all, it’s my body. I can choose. Having a baby, after all, is a restriction, and restrictions are tough.

Where is self-control and self-sacrifice and the value of life? Mothers should be pleading that others not drink while pregnant, because, “mom-to-be, there’s a baby in there!” Is it really too much of a restriction to not drink alcohol? No, but it is too much of a restriction for us humans to think of someone else besides ourselves. We got to look out for number one, right?

Sad. What are we destined for if we refuse to protect the precious and vulnerable among us, let alone the next generation?

A friend I gained over the summer while studying Biblical Greek for three semesters has changed names. Zhubert.com is now ReGreek.com, The Resurgence Greek Project. There’s an interview with the lead guy behind the project over at the Resurgence blog. They have a wonderful vision of providing the interested learner with free tools and resources in a slick, cutting-edge interface, wedding the study of God’s word with technology.

In our goal to resource multiple generations to live for Jesus so that they can effectively reach their city with the gospel by staying culturally accessible and biblically faithful we must not only study our city, as well we must study our bibles. The Resurgence Greek Project helps you study the Bible more effectively and more easily than ever before. No more flipping through numerous resources or problem solving an online tool that was designed in the early 90’s. Re:Greek brings you the latest technology to study the most timeless treasure, God’s Word, as part of the free online resources of theresurgence.com.

Fantastic.

I am pleased that the Southern Baptist Convention has organized the Building Bridges Conference that is to take place at the end of this month to discuss Calvinism. Moreover, it’s right that Nathan Finn should be giving an address on the misconceptions of Calvinism because of his irenic, Christ-like demeanor. I would like to contribute to the conversation and polling of opinions he has started over at his blog by adding some thoughts here and would encourage readers to do the same but by leaving thoughts at his blog (or here, too, if you must). Hopefully, my thinking on this subject here won’t add to the confusion of further mischaracterization.

An obvious place to lead in talking about misconceptions of Calvinism is the so-called five points of Calvinism. One could talk about the misconceptions of unconditional election, limited atonement, or total depravity. However, I believe this is granting too much and shows a misconception in itself, namely that Calvinism is simply five points. We will do well to remember that the five points of Calvinism were not first set forward by Calvinists as the Calvinist’s credo, but were five points of doctrine with which the followers of Jacob Arminius found disagreement. The five points of Calvinism may say more about Arminians than they do about Calvinists. Consequently, I believe it a misconception to think merely of Calvinism (the outworking of theology after Calvin) merely as five points. The five points of Calvinism are the five points at which there was found disagreement by another man’s followers at the Synod of Dort and do not encompass all that is theology done after the thinking of Calvin and the reformers, both magisterial and radical. (1) Calvinism is more than “Calvinism.” Calvinism entails a certain doctrine of God, an ecclesiology, a view of sacraments, and much more that I have yet to discover. Further, this may be one reason why many evangelicals are more comfortable, like I, of referring to their theology rather as reformed than Calvinistic, though not afraid of the term Calvinism.

The last sentence above reveals another misconception worthy of address. (2) Calvinists bearing the surname of John Calvin show their indebtedness to him, but (in many cases) no special attachment to or affinity for his person. In other words, accepting the name “Calvinist” is very much unlike accepting the name “Christian” in that, while the Christian does, can and should rightfully appropriate wholesale the Christ to life, the Calvinist does not and should not the person of John Calvin. Therefore, the argument that Calvin was not a Calvinist is useless and impotent because the Calvinist is not so much concerned with Calvin per se as much as doing theology after him. Nonetheless, was Jesus a Christian?

I will end with what I see as the most common misconception of Calvinism: that because God is sovereign in salvation (call it predestination or unconditional election) missions/evangelization is not needed. The misconception is that sovereignty in salvation and evangelization/missions are mutually exclusive. John Piper has done more than anyone that I know of to combat such misguided, incorrect, and ultimately unbiblical thinking (cf. Let the Nations Be Glad). (3) Piper shows that reformed thinking is not the abdicating of, nor antithetical to, missions but a continuously combusting engine driving missions not as an end but as a means to the greatest end of the glory of God in Christ Jesus. It is therefore a gross error to write off Calvinism in one stroke with statements like “If God predestines, why go?” as did one Methodist clergyman-to-be classmate in a history of Christianity course at my state university. Calvin quipped that to fail to proclaim the gospel was to leave Christ in the tomb.

Below is the audio from the plenary sessions of the C. S. Lewis conference recently hosted at Southeastern (October 26-27,  2007). I was unable to attend and have not yet listened to the audio in its entirety, but am hosting it here (with ID3 tags for those, like myself, wishing to put the files on MP3 players [seize that commute!] and renamed filenames for utility’s sake).

Session 1
Walter Hooper - Work as Editor of C.S. Lewis’ Works (12MB)

Session 2
Bruce Edwards – C.S. Lewis: America’s Bonny Fighter (9MB)

Session 3
Walter Hooper – C.S. Lewis: Reflections about the Man (12MB)

Session 4
James Como – Culture and Public Philosophy: The Other C.S. Lewis (11MB)