Monthly Archive for February, 2009

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E-Books Anyone?

Published on February 12, 2009 in Recommended Reading. 4 Comments

Are you thinking of buying a Kindle?

I used to think the idea of owning a lot of books was cool.  I spent one summer making bookshelves outside the breezeway in student housing at seminary.  I was poor, yet excited about a place for my commentaries to live.  It took me a couple of weeks in my spare time to make the bookshelves.

The glamour of being a librarian is fading.  The older I get, the more of a pain I find owning so many.  I haul books back and forth between church and home, stack them in corners, donate them, sell them on the Internet when possible.  I treasure some and regret buying others.

I have had great ethical debates in my own mind about how many pages I can read, and still return them in good conscience to a bookstore.

All of which is to say that the idea of being able to store a lot of books on one little device, and carry them with me wherever I go, is increasingly appealing.

I read today an article outlining 20 reasons that 2009 will be the year of the e-book, see here (HT: Between Two Worlds). 

Do you think e-books are the wave of the future?

Wesley Fell Harder for His Wife Then You Might Think, And Not in the Way You Would Think

Published on February 10, 2009 in Recommended Links. 3 Comments

Fred Sanders writes today about John Wesley’s marriage.  I don’t recall reading much about Wesley’s marriage (now I know why) and was surprised by this entry.

. . . But Wesley broke all his own rules when he married Molly, and got what he deserved. Early Methodist historians painted Molly as an unstable woman of sour disposition and a flaring temper, and posed questions like, “How did so wise and great a man come to make so unhappy a choice?” She does seem a bit crazed with jealousy, but then again when Molly opened the mail, she found letters from Wesley’s many –female– admirers. And she found in his coat pocket a letter of spiritual advice to a woman which included the words, “The conversing with you, either by speaking or writing, is an unspeakable blessing to me. I cannot think of you without thinking of God. Others often lead me to Him; but it is, as it were, going round about: you bring me straight into His presence.” That’s enough to get some dishes flying around anybody’s house. How did so wise and great a man manage to be so foolish and petty?

Read it all here.

Riding With Hoss and Little Joe on Pilgrim Radio Network

Published on February 10, 2009 in Forgiveness. 0 Comments

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As a child, I dreamed of doing something near Carson City, Nevada.  If you’re from my generation you will recall that the Ponderosa was near there.  I thought it would have been cool to ride right through the burning map.

Never got the chance.  Have yet to taste Hop Sing’s cooking.

However, I did recently have a Carson City opportunity that was almost as exciting.

You can listen to a tape delay interview of me with Bill Feltner of Pilgrim Radio Network (headquartered in Carson City, Nevada) on Wednesday, February 11, 2009, at at 4:04am CST; 2:04pm CST, and 11:04pm CST, at www.pilgrimradio.com and throughout the Pilgrim Radio Network.

I really enjoyed this interview.  We covered a lot of ground about forgiveness.

Otherwise, watch the opening of Bonanza.  Picture me riding out between Hoss and Little Joe.

24 Things About to Disappear in America

Published on February 8, 2009 in Recommended Links. 1 Comment

Crunchy Con shares 24 things about to disappear in America.  They include the yellow pages, vcr’s, and the family farm.

Read it all here.

On Bonhoeffer, Abortion and Cheap Grace

Published on February 7, 2009 in abortion, Forgiveness and Soteriology. 1 Comment

On the banks of Pollywog Creek, Patricia Hunter is interacting with a section of Unpacking Forgiveness that deals with cheap grace.  She considers how that area relates to abortion.

It’s worth clicking over to just to see the Bonhoeffer quotes.

The tragedies of “cheap grace” are multiple. First, there is a large group of people who think they are Christians when they are not. A second negative consequence of “cheap grace” is that the believers fail to think discerningly about what is right and wrong. When evil is not identified and named, it soon flourishes. (emphasis mine) ~ Chris Brauns, Unpacking Forgiveness, p.69

In a brief discussion on the reluctance to identify and name evil in Unpacking Forgiveness, Pastor Brauns mentions the apathy of the Christians in Germany to stand up to Nazism with Bonhoeffer’s explanation for the church’s ineffectiveness.

But do we realize this cheap grace has turned back on us like a boomerang? The price we are having to pay today in the shape of the collapse of the organized church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and the unbelieving. We poured forth unending streams of grace. But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was rarely ever heard.” ~ Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom

Pastor Brauns concludes with these thoughts…

We must see this warning as relevant for today. Just as it was to Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s, evil is on the rise in the twenty-first century. The church ought to identify and name evil, not declare that all must be unconditionally forgiven.~ Christ Brauns, Unpacking Forgiveness, p. 70

Abortion is an evil.

Read the whole thing here.

The Hills Are Always Blue From a Distance

Published on February 7, 2009 in Quotes and Wendell Berry. 0 Comments

Have you ever worn yourself out traveling between the hills?

Uncle Burley said hills always looked blue when you were far away from them. That was a pretty color for hills; the little houses and barns and fields looked so neat and quiet tucked against them. It made you want to be close to them. But he said that when you got close they were like the hills you’d left, and when you looked back your own hills were blue and you wanted to go back again. He said he reckoned a man could wear himself out going back and forth.  Wendell Berry in Nathan Coulter.

Nothing will destroy children quite like turning them into idols.

Published on February 6, 2009 in Parenting and Preaching. 12 Comments

I would like your feedback.  Is this an accurate statement to say in my forthcoming sermon on Heb 11:17-22?

If Abraham had not been willing to destroy Isaac, he would have destroyed Isaac.  In losing his son, he found him. . . Had not Abraham placed Isaac on Yahweh’s altar, he would have killed him on Abraham’s altar.

What do you think?

If we aren’t a bit undone by the story of Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, I wonder how carefully we’ve read it. . .Of course, then we survey the Cross where we’re really “undone.”

C.J. Mahaney on Michael Phelps and the Bong Picture

Published on February 5, 2009 in Recommended Links. 0 Comments

Regarding Michael Phelps’s recent picture, C.J. Mahaney writes:

By now most of you have seen the photograph of Olympic superstar swimmer Michael Phelps filling his giant lungs from a bong of marijuana. When the picture appeared in a British tabloid, Phelps acknowledged it was “youthful and inappropriate.”

Now there is no debate over whether the 23-year-old is gifted with athletic greatness. He is. And financially Phelps is set for life, his agent Peter Carlisle estimating his potential earnings will reach somewhere around $100 million.* Which I’m told would equal a stack of $100 bills 360 feet tall!

The photograph of Phelps reminds me of myself prior to conversion, a competitive swimmer (of slightly lesser skill), a sinner (of greater degree), held captive by sin, pursuing the fleeting pleasures of this world. And sadly, in my case, pursuing sin with passion.

So what was Phelps searching for in that bong pipe? What emptiness in his soul was he trying to satisfy?

Read the whole thing here.

Put Harry Markopolos in Charge of the SEC

Published on February 5, 2009 in Politics. 0 Comments

Is anyone more qualified that Harry Markopolos to head up the SEC?

Harry Markopolos, a former investment manager who tried to warn U.S. regulators about Bernard Madoff, joined lawmakers in blasting the Securities and Exchange Commission but said he was forwarding more tips to the agency.

Markopolos told a congressional hearing on Wednesday that SEC staff were neither willing nor able to uncover Madoff, arrested in December and charged with a record-shattering $50-billion fraud.

Calling SEC staff “too slow, too young and too undereducated,” Markopolos said the regulator was hindered by lawyers, did not understand red flags, could not do the math and was captive to the financial industry.

“They looked at the size of Madoff and and said he’s a big firm and we don’t attack big firms,” said Markopolos, who became aware of Madoff when the firm he worked for tried to pursue the same kind of strategy Madoff did but never got the same steady, strong returns.

Read the whole thing here.