Historical Discovery? Well, Yes And No

A new discovery based on the Oxyrhynchus Papyri offers insight into the ancient world, but it's not exactly the Holy Grail.

From the NYTimes Arts section.

By SARAH LYALL
Published: May 30, 2005

A New Take on an Old Debate

Teaching Science: A Balanced Perspective on the Evolution vs. Creation Debate
by Johann Christoph Arnold

The root of the word “science” is “to know,” and its original meaning is simply the possession of knowledge as opposed to ignorance or misunderstanding. God gave us our brains and the ability to discover, to observe, and to learn. For us who believe, what we learn gives us reason for praise; it fills us with wonder at the omnipotence of the Creator and the beauty of everything he has made — from the sky at morning to the buds of spring.

Excerpted from A Little Child Shall Lead Them, available FREE in e-book format.

From Bruderhof Communities online

Celebrating Nature

When I was a boy, I went to a summer camp that had a 'chapel' in the woods. It was an assembly of split logs on stumps for benches in the middle of a clearing. No building, no walls. That impression of worshiping surrounded by God's creation has never left me.

Imagine this. Ministers casting off ties and suits and rolling up their starched sleeves. Church matriarchs replacing designer hats and shoes with sneakers and sweatbands. Gold-plated doors flung open and congregations spilling into the brilliant sunlight. Dust particles sinking silently to rest in the shadows of abandoned churches.

From Bruderhof Communities online
by Kirk Wareham

Sims creator takes on evolution

Another from BBC News UK Edition
Alfred Hermida Technology editor, BBC News website, in Los Angeles

The creator of the hugely popular Sims game is working on an ambitious title in which you can truly be God.

See related article

Beer mat ads to recruit priests

The Catholic Church has decided to use beer mats and posters as part of a campaign to recruit more priests.

From BBC News UK Edition

Give Peace a Chance

A somewhat different take on the state of the world. This would seem to fit quite well with the idea that good news doesn't get as much attention as the bad. We don't hear about the days that pass peacfully, that's not very interesting. Add to that the speed at which news travels in general in today's world and we get the impression that there is little, if any good present. Just something to think about.

You would never guess it from the news, but we're living in a peculiarly tranquil world.

By NYTimes Op-Ed Columnist, JOHN TIERNEY
Published: May 28, 2005

A Natural Alliance

Liberals and evangelical Christians can work together to fight poverty at home and abroad.

From the NYTimes' Op-Ed Columnist, David Brooks, Published: May 26, 2005

Related link: Saddleback Church

Google's books online under fire

A US publishing organisation has accused Google of breaching copyright rules through a plan to put university libraries online.

We start letting people read books for free and there's no telling what might happen. He said, sarcastically.

more from the BBC

Christians purge video game demons

The Devil, they say, has all the best tunes. Until now he has also had the video games market sewn up.

from the BBC

And now, for something completely different...

Americans look to Jesus for diet

Five loaves, two fish and a goblet of red wine could be on the menu for Americans if a new diet takes off.

Somebody's paying attention

I was listening to a speaker this morning who posited the idea that instead of blaming the media or trying to shield our children from its evils, we take responsibility and teach them how to resist. What a concept! I think that would fall under the heading of 'parenting'.

We often tend to be a society that is wont to point the finger, blaming others for our problems. When very likely they may have been prevented by some strategically implemented attentiveness on our part.

On a Christian Mission to the Top

From the NYTimes

This article has got people talking,
For further reading:
Christian Engagement With The Ivy League from Apprehension
What's Wrong with Evangelicals? from Religious but not Right
Christianity and Class at Brown from Daily Pepper

Tell Me the Old, Old Story—and Make It New

Apologetics for our time, by Lauren F. Winner

Jesus in the Media

First from ABC News:
Resurrection

Then from Beliefnet.com:
The Resurrection of Jesus: An Interview with Lee Strobel

Just Do It

Humanly speaking, it is possible to understand the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. But Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience - not intrepreting or applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear his words. He does not mean for us to discuss it as an ideal. He really means for us to get on with it.

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906–1945

What does it mean to take Jesus at his word?

source: Daily Dig

Losing your religion

The experience of losing your faith, or of having lost it, is an experience that in the long run belongs to faith; or at least it can belong to faith if faith is still valuable to you, and it must be or you would not have written me about this. I don't know how the kind of faith required of a Christian living in the 20th century can be at all if it is not grounded on this experience that you are having right now of unbelief. "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief" is the most natural and most human and most agonizing prayer in the gospels, and I think it is the foundation prayer of faith.

~Flannery O'Connor, 1925–1964

Source: Daily Dig

See C.S. Lewis quote in left column.

Enter the BiblioBloggers

posted by Jim Davila at his paleojudaica blog.

Conflicted America: The Ironies Abound

This is from November of last year. I'll concede that it is not exactly breaking news, but it's still worth a read if you haven't seen it.

The first paragraph:

When America sat down last week for its annual rite of national Thanksgiving, some would argue that two different nations actually celebrated: upright, moral, traditional red America and the dissolute, liberal blue states clustered on the periphery of the heartland. The truth, however, is much more complicated and interesting than that.

Read more...

Six Blind Men and the Elephant

I was reminded recently of a story I've always enjoyed. It's the tale of the six blind men and the elephant.

As the story goes, these six men encounter an elephant. And having never seen one, did not know what to expect. The first man exploring a tusk, says an elephant is very like a spear. The next, grabbing the trunk declares the elephant to be more of a snake. Near the elephant's head a third man, catching a breeze from an ear proclaims an elephant to be fan-like. Further on, a man walking into a leg announces an elephant to be not unlike a tree. Just behind him, the man at the middle is convinced an elephant is as wide as a wall. Finally, at the back, is the man who argues an elephant is nothing more than a rope.

The point of the story—as I interpret it—is not that they all be chastised for being wrong. Even as they are certainly not to be applauded for being right. It's much more complicated than that. The one thing they all are— is limited in their knowledge of what truly constitutes an elephant. Incomplete knowledge is not wrong knowledge, however. What could be wrong though, is opinions that might be formed based on that limited knowledge. The second man (finding the trunk) could decide to avoid elephants because he doesn't like snakes for example. His response would be misguided. Yet we cannot condemn him for it if we aren't willing to expand his knowledge. If we attempt to do so, and he refuses to listen, or be persuaded, so be it. But we've done our part.

Another parallel I see is that the six blind men are the various religions, Protestant, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, et al. They each have their own take on scripture and how to interpret and live by it. None blaringly wrong, yet none wholly right. Myself, I certainly do not profess to have the final answer on any of it. I believe it is beyond the scope of our intellect. See post below: After all we are only human

After all, we are only human...

The secrets of the most high God, who created all things, cannot be obtained by our own ability and perceptions. Otherwise there would be no difference between God and man, if human thought could reach to the counsels and arrangements of that Eternal Majesty.

ANF 7.9 Lanctantius

Quite a statement...

I believe it to be a great mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it.... We cannot blink at the fact that gentle Jesus meek and mild was so stiff in his opinions and so inflammatory in his language that he was thrown out of church, stoned, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger. Whatever his peace was, it was not the peace of an amiable indifference.

—Dorothy Sayers, 1893–1957

Source: Daily Dig

More on Gestures of Worship

The bows, the stretching out [of the hands] during the Divine Office, the continual genuflections during prayer, confer on the monk, during the constant standing of the Office in the presence of God, humbling and abasement of the mind, warmth of the heart, purification of the body, ardor of the soul, and diligence in thought. For without prostrations, bows, stretching out the hands, and genuflections, the Office of the brothers will be routine, cold, and shallow, as will be the prayers said during it.
Devote yourself therefore to these things, my son, with all your strength, forcefully, ardently, and courageously, so that your offering might be pleasing to God.

J.-B. Chabot, "Vie du moine Youssef Bousnaya", Revue de l'Orient Chrétien 4 (1899): 411

What My Jesus Would Do

An entry from the blog of author John Scalzi.
Within the above entry he refers to his earlier post.

Don't Forget To Grieve

Telling insight from one Bob Hyatt. Husband to Amy, father to Jack and lead pastor to the evergreen community in Portland, OR.

Other offerings from Bob definitely worth the read:

bob.blog
nextChurchnetwork.org
Next-Wave: Church & Culture

A simple photograph...

From ricoblog—

Christian Rock for Muslims

From the NYTimes art & music

Catholic Devotion, and Doubts

From the NYTimes

NYTimes.com article on video games

NYTimes.com: 'Playstations of the Cross'

We are a product of our environment

You are not only a Christian; you are either a male or a female whose life, in fact if not in theory, is as much determined by your sexual as by your religious needs and desires, thoughts, and instincts. The Christian community is not the only community you belong to. You are a member of a family community; you are a husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, brother or sister. And much more of your life is spent (or should be) concentrating on the success or failure, happiness or misery of your family relationships (or lack of them) than on church activities. You are a member of one race or another, one economic class or another; and more than likely even the particular congregation you belong to has been brought together far more obviously on the basis of common racial and class ties than on the basis of common theological convictions... In short, part of your life is colored by what goes on in the church, but much of it is also colored by what goes on in the home, bank, supermarket, courthouse, and movie and television studios. Even when you leave the “world” to go to church, you take your worldly life with you. Insofar as you are in the church, the world is there too. Even when you put aside the newspaper and other secular literature to read the Bible...you bring to your religious studies all your secular problems, desires, and opinions—whether you want to or not.

Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine: Revised Edition (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), 3–4.

Ducks

From Tony Campolo

Perhaps my favorite Kierkegaardian story is his parable of the ducks. He describes a town where only ducks live. Every Sunday the ducks waddle out of their houses and waddle down Main Street to their church. They waddle into the sanctuary and squat down in their proper pews. The duck choir waddles in and takes its place, then the duck minister comes forward and opens his duck Bible (Ducks, like all other creatures on earth, seem to have their own special version of the Scriptures.) He reads to them: "Ducks! God has given you wings! With wings you can fly! With wings you can mount up and soar like eagles. No walls can confine you! No fences can hold you! You have wings and you can fly like birds!"All the ducks shouted, "Amen!" And they all waddled home.

Gestures of Worship

I hear talk of the proliferation of physical calisthenics the Catholic Church incorporates into their services. One genuflects at the pew, kneels, stands, makes the sign of the cross, etc. It's been described as so much useless activity. And that it may well be—if one is not engaged. But how different is all that from raising one's palm/palms toward the stage during song, which is not uncommon at some other churches. The Catholic Church has its Liturgy which has been perceived by some as being just so much mindless routine. But is it really so different from the predictable format of the service at other churches? See quote from C.S. Lewis on worship. If I say, 'the car is red' or 'el coche es roja' it means the same thing, but sounds and looks completely different. I feel worship is the same, there are as many different ways of worshipping as there are individuals in the world. It's not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad. There can be bad worship if it's not sincere. But whatever form it takes, if the individual is sincere in their hearts, how they choose to express that outwardly is not for us to judge. Whether that is raising the palms toward the stage, or clutching a rosary.

Hip New Churches Pray to a Different Drummer

Courtesy of the New York Times

Evangelicals: Beyond the Label

From the Chicago Sun-Times