Recently in Faith Category
Pyromaniacs: Was Spurgeon KJVO?
Charles Spurgeon didn't believe the King James Version to be inerrant. (For that matter, neither did the King James Version's own translators.)
challies.com: The New Shape of World Christianity
Tim Challies reviews Mark Noll's new book, The Shape of World Christianity, listing some of the startling facts in the book: "This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined--and the number of Anglicans in church in Nigeria was several times the umber in those other African countries. This past Sunday more Presbyterians were at church in Ghana than in Scotland, and more were in congregations of the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa than in the United States."
RELIGION; A Man of the Cloth - The New York Times
Making cloth kosher is a growing industry:
"Little-known outside the Orthodox Jewish community, the law of shatnez prohibits the wearing of any garment that has a mixture of lamb's wool and linen. These days, the testing of clothes, rugs and even upholstery is on the rise as more people adopt the Torah's prescribed regulations....
"On his desk sits the primary tool of his trade, a microscope, which is used to examine microfibers. Like an excitable child playing with a chemistry set, Rabbi Aronovitch placed a fiber from Mr. Coleman's collar on a slide, then squeezed a droplet of olive oil on the fabric to separate the threads."
(Via Ron Coleman, who is quoted in the story.)
The Americans know this will end in schism | Tom Wright - Times Online
The Anglican Bishop of Durham, N. T. Wright, says that the Episcopal Church in the US has broken with the Anglican Communion. "Ways must be found for all in America who want to be loyal to [the Anglican Communion], and to scripture, tradition and Jesus, to have that loyalty recognised and affirmed at the highest level."
"We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may 'love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise'. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel. "
Tulsa Metro Baptist Association directory of churches
A listing of 153 Southern Baptist churches in and around Tulsa.
"A history of the lives, sufferings, and triumphant deaths of the early Christian and the Protestant martyrs." A 16th century book, updated to include 17th, 18th, and 19th century persecutions of dissenters like John Bunyan and the Quakers and missionaries like Adoniram Judson.
"After the Bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the Book of Martyrs. Even in our time it is still a living force. It is more than a record of persecution. It is an arsenal of controversy, a storehouse of romance, as well as a source of edification."
Michael Spencer writes: "I can't imagine that any religion in the history of humanity has made as many clearly false claims and promises as evangelical Christians in their quest to say that Jesus makes us better people right now. With their constant promises of joy, power, contentment, healing, prosperity, purpose, better relationships, successful parenting and freedom from every kind of oppression and affliction, I wonder why more Christians aren't either being sued by the rest of humanity for lying or hauled off to a psych ward to be examined for serious delusions."
internetmonk.com: Avoiding Death by Nostalgia: My Denomination (The SBC) Today
Is the "rope of sand" falling apart? Did the conservative resurgence unwittingly sow the seeds of the SBC's eventual dissolution? And is that even a bad thing? "So Southern Baptists began to produce young people, young pastors and young professors who were serious about putting scripture first.... above denomination[,] tradition[,] custom[,] culture and habit[,] above 'the way Southern Baptists have always done it'[,] above Southern Baptist ways of justifying what Southern Baptists do..... Gone are the days when Nashville (or the state convention office) determined the programs and priorities of every SBC church."
Pyromaniacs: An Interesting Morsel from an Old Magazine
An eyewitness account of the person and preaching of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, from Harpers Magazine, December 1858.
Amazon.com: Trial and Triumph: Stories from Church History: Richard M. Hannula: Books
Forty-six brief biographies for school children, including Augustine of Hippo and his mother Monica, Gregory the Great, Polycarp, Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, John Bunyan, Amy Carmichael, Charles Spurgeon, and Richard Wurmbrand. (Recommended by TulipGirl.)
