Archive for the ‘Current Events’ Category

Tim Keller in Nashville this Wednesday

Monday, January 26th, 2009

If you are in the Nashville area this Wednesday and can make the time you should consider seeing Tim Keller speak on The Prodigal God at Christ Presbyterian. Here’s the blurb :

Newsweek has called him a “C.S.Lewis for the twenty-first century”, and his latest book is based on Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. In this familiar story, Keller challenges both devout Christians and skeptics to see Christianity in a whole new way as Jesus reveals God’s prodigal grace toward both the irreligious and the moralistic. “I have seen more people encouraged, enlightened, and helped by this passage when I explained the true meaning of it, than by any other text.”

And drop me a line if you’re going. I plan on being there.

Details and flyers here.

Posted in Current Events, Theology | 6 Comments »

Ken Myers in Nashville this weekend

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

If you’re familiar at all with Ken Myers or Mars Hill Audio and have some free time on April 11th and 12th then consider setting aside some time next weekend.

The Humanitas Forum on Christianity and Culture will be hosting Mr. Myers along with Dr. Jeremy Beer as they speak on the intersection of discipleship, faith, and culture. The weekend lecture series is entitled More Than a Personal Savior :

Before Jesus commanded the Church to go and make disciples, he asserted his authority over everything in Heaven and on Earth. Yet many modern Christians (and their secularist neighbors) assume that Christian discipleship is a matter of private spiritual growth with few earthly consequences concerning the ways we order our time, make and spend our money, and think about our place in Creation.

In four presentations, Ken Myers and Jeremy Beer will look at how modern culture tempts us to shrink our faith, and how we might resist that temptation.

For more information as well as registration information just go here.

Posted in Current Events, Spiritual, Theology | 5 Comments »

An Apropos Quote

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
All over the quiet plains, beneath the snow on the high mountains, rustling through the cattails that congregate along the water, you can sometimes feel the presence of a promise. On cold nights when you look at the sky, sometimes your breath catches in your throat at how bright the night can be. The dark spaces between the stars aren’t as dark as you thought they were; not nearly as dark as the tree line on the horizon, and as you stand there shivering with your hands bunched in your pockets suddenly you remember that you’re standing on a rock in the middle of space. Suddenly the notion that there’s a Someone who made it all and knows us all no longer seems quite so far-fetched; indeed, it seems too good to be false.

But here we toil and we till the hard earth, where even the warm times with friend and kin are lonely because we know they won’t last long enough to quiet the ache. Our sadness points to Home the way hunger points to the feast, the way the light of the cratered moon is always facing the sun, always pointing to where the dawn will come like a pillar of fire when this rock we walk on turns again to burning day. All over the quiet plains and the cold stone cities full of dying and shame the promise is not drowned out by the weeping; it is declared by it.

God died as a man and rose again, and the sound of the fiery blast of Death exploding shook the firmament. Throughout the wail and shudder, over the shriek and moan of man the thunder has sounded and sung, and it is both the answer and the promise. It sings still, and you can hear what it says if you listen: love never dies.

-Andrew Peterson, from the cover of his “Love & Thunder” cd

Posted in Current Events, Spiritual | 1 Comment »

Simply Amazing

Monday, June 18th, 2007

If you haven’t seen Paul Potts singing at Britain’s Got Talent then you need to watch.

More info here.

HT : The Christian Mind

Posted in Current Events | 3 Comments »

…on Him we have set our hope…

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007

vt_memorial.jpg

How do I – an outsider watching the details trickle into newsrooms in disbelief – begin to deal with the indescribable events that have occured at VT? Questions form exponentially. I have absolutely no personal connection with anyone on campus, but in my mind it is much to easy to transplant the chaos at VT to the college in our own town. The emotion is mind-boggling. And I am as far removed from the trauma as an American could be. What must these families be experiencing? Calls for healing seem to be echoing from all around, but can “healing” from events such as this happen on command?

Life is this frail. Evil is this real. And it’s a shame that it takes horrific events like this to remind me. But God is still good. And I trust that He holds VT in His hands today. If today we are all Hokies, even more so, we are all God’s.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
~ 2 Corinthians 1:3-11

(HT to Foolish Sage for the logo)

Posted in Current Events | 4 Comments »

Got TV Plans Tonight?

Friday, January 26th, 2007

Cancel them – quick! Find your nearest TBN channel and tune in tonight for…

people_from_that_one_show_3.jpg

According to Brant Hansen, “The finale for “Gifted” is on tonight. Some people are unclear on the concept, so let me try: It’s like “American Idol”, except that, just like on Idol, Christians are allowed on the show. And no, I don’t understand that last sentence, either.”

This is not a joke. (I wish it was.)

[This post partially inspired by an IMonk post from last week.]

Posted in Current Events | No Comments »

a Holiday for all of us

Monday, January 15th, 2007

Since today is a Holiday where we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, I thought I would post a link to a video of his famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech.

The video quality wasn’t so good for me (could be my connection), but the audio is fantastic. It takes about 20 minutes to hear the whole speech, which is WONDERFUL. I still get chills listening to it.

For me personally, I think if I had one wish in life, it would be to have been there on that day when he gave his speech. I know there are other wonderful moments in History, but I am fascinated by that one. I am a person who has been changed by his legacy and am thankful that we celebrate this Holiday.

A few short comments about the speech. I find it interesting that many of his core points are still relavant today. I’m not referring to the ones specifically related to the 1960s, but the ones that transcend time. One example is where he says that our freedom as people is tied up together. All people, regardless of race, can’t be truly free (physically speaking, not spiritually) until people of all races are given the dignity and respect we each deserve as a creation of God. I think that is something we often miss. We think that racism isn’t our problem if we don’t hold prejudical views…but it is. We are all hindered by racism, if for no other reason then because there is value and personal richness (not monitary) in not having boundaries that keep people from different races so often separated. Even if we don’t try to put up any boundaries, they exist all around us.

And that hurts my heart…

Posted in Current Events | 1 Comment »

Have You Seen This?!

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006

A company in California, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., announced today that they have successfully created a system of generating human embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryo.  Interestingly, the technique they’re using to do this is the same (also controversial) technique used to determine the genetic health of a pre-implanted embryo during In Vitro Fertilization.

“Until now, embryonic stem cell research has been synonymous with the destruction of human embryos,” stated Robert Lanza, M.D., Vice President of Research & Scientific Development at ACT, and the study’s senior author. “We have demonstrated, for the first time, that human embryonic stem cells can be generated without interfering with the embryo’s potential for life…”  Read entire article.

Posted in Current Events | 2 Comments »

From the other side

Monday, July 24th, 2006

There are certain segments of evangelicalism who have a love affair with Israel and it’s supposed destiny in God’s salvific plan for the world. Unfortunately, this view can blind you to the realities of what’s really going on(and has for centuries) in the conflicts we see in the Middle East. Take a second to read this recent article by Martin Accad – dean of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Lebanon. Here are the first few paragraphs :

It is normally easy enough for me to dismiss with a smirk some of the simplistic comments that I constantly read or hear from Christians around the world as pertains to events that are going on in the Middle East. These comments hit much deeper at a time when my country is once again hurting beyond pain, under the murderous aggression of Israeli armed forces for the past five days.

It is striking how normally highly reasonable and spiritually aware people can suddenly lose any sense of ethical, let alone Christian, balance when it comes to Middle East conflicts involving modern political Israel.

“Great. All we need is a nuclear-armed Iran led by a messianic president who hates Israel and believes that apocalyptic destruction is a precursor to global salvation,” writes David P. Gushee in a recent Christianity Today online column, in reference to Iran’s president Ahmadinejad. On the whole, Gushee’s article is fairly balanced from a certain point of view, and I suppose within the limits necessary to avoid being attacked and branded by those in our churches who have but disdain for Arabs.

But how is it that he, like so many others, fails to notice that world events in the last few years—even decades—have had as their main catalyst tens of thousands of evangelical Christians with a “messianic” mentality who believe that apocalyptic destruction of all but their beloved Israel will be “a precursor to global salvation”? (read more)

By pointing to this article I’m not condoning or excusing the violence on either side. At the same time, we have to discard the misguided theology which puts Israel on a pedastal above all others. God’s chosen people live and die in places other than America and Israel.

(HT : Radix Perspectives)

Posted in Current Events, Theology | 5 Comments »