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Read the Psalms monthly in 2024
For your consideration during New Year's Resolution Season: A little over a year ago, I decided I needed to do a better job of feeding my mind and spirit. I notice that my bedtime habit of listening to old British radio comedies (particularly Hancock's Half Hour) to help me drift...
Resources on believers' baptism
A rain-filled mikveh (ritual immersion pool) at Korazim National Park, Israel. Photo © 2023 by Michael D. Bates, all rights reserved. Here are a couple of useful resources that I recently encountered, one very old, one new, in support of the view that Christian baptism is for those only...
Reformation 500: Sola Scriptura
Reformation begins with the rediscovery of God's Word: And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord." And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.... Then Shaphan the secretary told the king,...
Reformation 500: George Weigel: Reform is re-form
George Weigel, a Roman Catholic theologian, has some words for his own church about reformation that American Evangelicals can usefully heed. Reform is not mere change, but restoration of a form that once existed but has been lost. Authentic Christian reform, in other words, is not a matter of human...
Battle of Beersheba: 100 years
I'll get back to the charter amendment proposals in a couple of days, but we have some historical commemorations that deserve our attention. There's the big one -- the semimillenial celebration of Luther's 95 Theses and the commencement of the Protestant Reformation -- but 100 years ago today there...
Reformation history podcast
In honor of the upcoming semimillenial celebration of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, Desiring God Ministries is running a daily series of biographies during the month of October, entitled "Here We Stand: A 31 Day Journey with Heroes of the Reformation," presented both as text and podcast. These are brief --...
Ted Cruz, Coverdell ESAs, homeschooling, and 7 Mountains
Fans of Ted Cruz's opponents have been spreading a lot of misinformation designed to dissuade homeschoolers and evangelicals from backing Cruz. They're trying to make him out to be so naive or dishonest as to invite federal interference in homeschooling. They're also claiming that he's the minion of a kooky...
Article V Convention: Why not?
James Madison, writing to George Turberville, 2 November 1788, about the prospect of another Constitutional Convention before the ink was dry on the 1787 Constitution: "You wish to know my sentiments on the project of another general Convention as suggested by New York. I shall give them to you with...
Toxic leadership, in churches and businesses
Rob Asghar, writing in Forbes, offers some noteworthy insights about organizations, accountability, and game-changing leaders. Asghar calls Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill Church, the "Enron of American churches": In life, blowhards and bullies will inevitably rise up and do their thing. In the field of management, they tend to rise up...
"He wants some angry young men..."
An interesting article on Martin Luther, reflecting at age 57 on the heedlessness of youth -- his own, 23 years earlier: When I approached Worms, and was not far from there, Spalatin sent a messenger to me with a warning from Friedrich the Wise, who was already there, that I...
Founders Conference: David Wells to speak in Owasso
There's a great opportunity coming up later this month for Tulsa-area Christians with an interest in sound theology and a concern for the lack of interest in same which prevails in much of the evangelical realm. Dr. David Wells is professor of historical and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary....
Zuhdi Jasser: An interview with a moderate Muslim leader
Erick Stakelbeck's latest report on Hot Air is an interview with Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Jasser, a cardiologist living in the Phoenix area, was born in Wisconsin and served 11 years as a Navy medical officer. He believes faithful Muslims are freer to...
A blogroll snapshot
I am going to be pruning my blogroll over the next few weeks -- checking in with sites I don't visit as often nowadays, removing links to dead and zombie blogs, and synchronizing my blogroll with my Newsgator page. The plan is to take 10 at a time in the...
Reformed rap
Calvinist hip-hop? Fo' rizzle: Bethlehem Baptist pastor John Piper took the podium at a Saturday evening service in downtown Minneapolis last fall and introduced Curtis "Voice" Allen, a hip-hop artist. After warning the largely white congregation that his music would "thump" a bit more than typical Bethlehem fare, Allen launched...
Mosque of peace?
This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly is about Jamal Miftah and his treatment by leaders of the Islamic Society of Tulsa's al-Salam ("Peace") mosque over his guest editorial in the October 29 Tulsa World. (Here's a link to the text of his op-ed.) The same issue has another letter...
The need to keep confessing
David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, has an interesting entry, "On Thinking New Theological Thoughts." He cites the late Presbyterian theologian John Murray, no liberal or modernist he, who writes of the need for each generation to deal with the issues of the day in the light of Scripture. While the ancient...
Online MIT, Covenant Seminary courses
It's the golden age of the autodidact. An increasing number of universities are making course materials available online for free. The materials can't be used for course credit, but they are available for one's personal enlightenment and enrichment. Two institutions where I gained some higher learning offer online course material....
A better reason for blogger consortia
Pajamas Media launched in November amidst much fanfare and a certain amount of confusion, thanks to their last minute name switch to Open Source Media, followed by a quick reversal to Pajamas. As I understand it, the point of Pajamas Media is to get mainstream advertisers to support blogging by...
Welcome back to...
...Will of Caffeinated Musings, who is learning to be less caffeinated and more active. ...Missy of Marsupial Mom, who has posted her first entry ("a hodge-podge") since giving birth to her new baby boy back in August. Her latest post links to a Reformation Day entry by Jollyblogger, in an...
A faithful few links
I'm not going to be doing any writing of my own tonight, but here are a few links on faith, theology, etc., for your Sunday edification: Evangelical Outpost has the commencement speech Neil Postman never delivered (but you're welcome to give it, if you ever get the chance). Graduates, will...
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