Cloud of Steam

Mark Dever on what it means to fail at evangelism

via www.youtube.com

Traditional carols are 'nonsense', says bishop - Telegraph

Traditional carols are 'nonsense', says bishop

Some traditional carols are “nonsense” and have turned Jesus into a Father Christmas figure, according to a leading bishop.

 

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 8:30AM GMT 29 Nov 2009

Two thirds think there is a danger carols could die out Photo: Paul Grover

Away in a Manger cannot be sung “without embarrassment”, Once in Roy al David’s City is “Victorian behaviour control”; and O Come, All Ye Faithful is misleading, said the Bishop of Croydon, the Rt Rev Nick Baines.

He blamed the much-loved carols for adding to confusion over the season’s real meaning and turning Jesus into a figure as fictitious as Father Christmas.

via www.telegraph.co.uk

Rev Baines makes some very good points about the sugar-coated view of Christmas in a number of well-loved carols. Read the whole thing here. For years Grace Presbyterian Wodonga and other churches I have attended have sung "The little Lord Jesus some crying he makes" in Away in A Manger.

Ligonier Ministries Rappers John and Ligon Duncan

via www.youtube.com

John and Ligon Duncan domenstrate unaccompanied singing (of a sort). Their mother, Mrs Duncan, has postgraduate training in choral music. She must be so proud.

"Jesus wore pants, not a dress!!!" O RILY? NO WAI!

via www.youtube.com

Please, preachers, do your research. We kilt wearers won't be send to hell for it.

Introverts in the church - Reformation21 Blog

Introverts in the church

Posted by Sean Lucas

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As a confirmed INTJ (that's Myers-Briggs personality speak for introvert, intuitive, thinking, judgment), I've struggled at time with my personality. For example, my wife loves to entertain large groups of people at our home; I prefer to have one other couple over for the evening. I find that I don't do well in large group events; I much prefer having lunch with someone where we can have a conversation. I find myself drained after a full day with people (like Sunday) and need a day following such a busy time to recharge. One week of vacation doesn't help me much; I find that two or three weeks back-to-back enables me to recharge.

At first, I thought that this was just my own quirkiness. After spending some time reading on personality types, I found that I was perfectly normal (well, that's debatable) or at least that I have lots of company. In an extroverted world and church and married to an extroverted spouse, there are simply personality differences that are like being left-handed in a right-handed world; not wrong, just different. The challenge becomes learning how to manage myself in the light of how God made me and in view of the calling God has given me.

via www.reformation21.org

As a fellow INTJ, I highly recomment Sean Lucas' thoughts. Read the whole lot at reformation21.org

Abbott, Bishop lead Liberals

via www.abc.net.au

Tony Abbott today won a leadership ballot to become the leader of the Liberal party of Australia.

No doubt a lot of Christians are happy to see a professing Catholic and social conservative at the head of the party. A lot of Labor supporters and small "l" liberals are disgusted.

I don't think much of his electoral prospects, but I don't think the Liberals would do well at the next election anyway. No matter who their leader is, avoiding oblivion at the ballot box will be the name of the game, not winning Government.

As the Howard Government headed for defeat in the election of 2007 I was reminded of Psalm 146:3 "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help." It's one thing to maintain an informed participation in the political process, but it's a mistake to think that's where the battle is won.

Revolution Complete

Just after my 21st birthday I ordered a swathe of books from Monergismbooks.com. Among the 15 or so to arrive on my doorstep late in 2007 was Revolutions in Worldview: Understanding the Flow of Western Thought edited by W. Andrew Hoffecker. Had I known that the introduction described it as a graduate-level upgrade on an undergraduate text I might have though twice about purchasing the 528 page tome.

It was one of the first of the order that I dove into, after R C Sproul's The Invisible Hand: Do All Things Really Work for Good? and Holding Hands, Holding Hearts: Recovering a Biblical View of Christian Dating by Richard and Sharon Philips. I admit that there was a period of a number of months were I didn't pick it up at all, but I was determined to finish it. This afternoon I did.

The final chapter spent a lot of time contrasting early Wittgenstein and late Wittgenstein, which I found particularly hard going, but the experience has been very helpful to considering how our understanding has developed from Hebrew and Greek thought through the New Testament, Medieval, Reformation, Enlightenment and Modern worldviews.

This book, along with reading the much lighter Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes during my trip to Fiji, has attached some understanding to the names I learned in Monty Python's Philosophers Song.

T.U.L.I.P.S.?

T.U.L.I.P.S.? Unpublished reformation manuscript confirms 6th point of Calvinism that many suspected existed all along: Smug Superiority

XIANITY

via twitter.com

Satirical Twitter account XIANITY maps current practice back onto the 16th century.

Does God Need Defending?

Earlier this month, Liberal Party MP for North Sydney Joe Hockey delivered a speech at the Sydney Institute entitled In Defence of God. The script is available on his website. His idea of God is a catch-all amalgum of the nice bits of religious figures, not the God who reveled Himself in the Bible at various time in history by His Spirit and though the incarnation of His Son, Hebrews 1. There is no message of separation from God because of sin and the offer of forgiveness and restoration. Instead, God's main message is "'Love your neighbor as yourself'", the second great commandment. There is no mention of what Jesus called the greatest commandment, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind'" Matthew 22:36-39. If a minister of religion had launched into a political discussion with as little research as Mr Hockey did he would have beaten out of the public square.

A couple of days later Annabell Crabb wrote a brilliant piece for the Sydney Morning Herald entitled God's memo for Kevin and Joe. It is written in the guise of God addressing a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament which may offend, depending on your interpretation of the first commandment. Her point is not to make fun of God, but rather to satirise those who use Him for their own ends. I recommend it.

It's great that people can talk about God in the public square, but we should be careful not to fall over in amazement nor give them unthinking support just for doing so, particularly when the God they are talking about can be so different from the one we know.

Patient trapped in a 23-year 'coma' was conscious all along | Mail Online

Patient trapped in a 23-year 'coma' was conscious all along

By Allan Hall
Last updated at 8:24 AM on 23rd November 2009

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A car crash victim diagnosed as being in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time.

Rom Houben was paralysed but had no way of letting doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying.

'I dreamed myself away,' said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state.

Rom Houben was trapped in a coma for 23 years and had no way of letting anyone know he could hear what they were saying (pictured posed by model)

'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' added Mr Houben.

Doctors used a range of coma tests before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was 'extinct'.

But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.

via www.dailymail.co.uk

Stories like this really make me wonder.