Do you like mysteries?

Dr. Holly Ordway has a nice, succinct post on mystery novels and the Christian worldview. 

Mystery novels, taken as a whole, reflect at a deep level the truth of the Christian worldview. And yes, I mean mystery novels in general, not “mystery novels by Christian writers.”

Here’s why.

In any normal mystery novel (notice that I am omitting weird literary or experimental ones; those are the exceptions that prove the rule), certain ingredients are essential:

1. A crime.
2. An investigation of the crime.
3. A resolution of the crime.

All three conditions point ineluctably toward a moral universe, one in which right and wrong, good and evil, have objective meaning. Let’s consider each point.

 Read more here.  

The Great Debate: Is there evidence for God?

 Well, we of course believe there is overwhelming evidence for it.  But tonight there will be a debate between two well matched opponents:  Dr. William Craig (pro) & Dr. Lawrence Krauss (against).  You can get the a preview of the debate here at Wintery Knight, and you can watch the debate online, 7pm EST.

Last day for free audio download

Have you downloaded RC Sproul's "The Holiness of God" from christianaudio.com yet?   Today's the last day to do so.  I encourage you do get this free download.  Sproul's classic work is one of the top 5 most influential books in my life. 

Science & Faith

"Once upone a time, back in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was certainly possible to believe that science and religion were permanently at war...This is now seen as a hopelessly outmoded historical stereotype that scholarship has totally discredited."

~ Alister McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion:  Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine

Ideas have consequences....

Does one's worldview matter?

"I see no reason for attributing to man a significance 

different in kind from that which belongs 

to a baboon or a grain of sand?"

~ US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

I wonder if those who hold to such a worldview finding it shocking when someone goes on a shooting spree?

"How," one wonders given Holmes' view of human life, "could such an incident be no more significant than exterminating ants?"

[qtd. in Time Magazine: “The Nation: A Clearer Voice?” (Sept 21, 1953)]

Rome burns football idolatry

You've probably seen the commercials of the guys who have "never missed a super bowl."  If not, check it out here:  Bob, Tom, Larry, & Don.  Sports commentator Jim Rome surprisingly takes them to the shed in his typical cut-to-the-chase style.   Check it out:



For the record, I need to hear Rome's rebuke as much as these guys do.   As one who has allowed his weekend to be ruined by what a bunch of 20 year olds do on the grid iron, I need to be reminded of what is truly important as well. 

How prone is the heart to call this into question...

Memorable words from Jedi-master, Jonathan Edwards,

“There is no one thing whatsoever more plain and manifest, and more demonstrable, than the being of God. It is manifest in ourselves, in our bodies and souls, and in everything about us wherever we turn our eye, whether to heaven, or to earth, the air, or the seas. And yet how prone is the heart of man to call this into question! So inclined is the heart of man to blindness and delusion, that it is prone to even atheism itself.”

From Man's Natural Blindness in Religion
Qtd in James Spiegel's The Making of an Atheist, p. 9 

Amazon makes me smile!

Just arrived...

What was in it?

• The Making of an Atheist:  How Immorality Leads to Unbelief
• The Lost World of Genesis One:  Ancient Cosmology & the Origins Debate
• Washed & Waiting:  Reflections on Christian Faithfulness & Homosexuality
• Is God Just a Human Invention? And 17 Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists
• Saving Leonardo:  A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning

Amazon makes me smile!

Free Audio: Adopted for Life

Christian Audio is offering Russell Moore's Adopted for Life for free during the month of February.   Be sure to download it.  

Reading Log for January 2011

Below is a record of what I read in the month of January 2011. And to understand the ratings, here is my standard.

5 stars -- I loved it; highly recommended
4 stars -- A great read; recommended; will most likely read it again
3 stars -- Average read; most likely will not read it again
2 stars -- Didn't care much for it
1 star  -- Painful, waste of paper

1.  Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow, by Nancy Guthrie.   This is an excellent book by a mother who lost several children.   She doesn't sugar coat the pain of living in a broken world, and she certainly doesn't spout platitudes.  Here you will find a sure guide for journeying through pain and loss, and still seeking God in the process.  While I have a few quibbles with how she worded a few things, I have a much more than a little admiration for the ways in which she worded so much of what she says.   4.5 stars

2.  Servant Leader, by Ken Blanchard.  A good little book with some practical advice about leadership characterized by servanthood.   He strained some of the biblical texts, I thought, to support what he wanted to say, but he had some good things to say.  3 stars

3.  Children of Men, by PD James.   I went into this book wanting to be intrigued by the story.  The first chapter is excellent as James sets up a world in which humanity has lost the ability to have children.   Fascinating premise.  But after chapter 1 it went downhill.  My wife has a hundred page rule on a book--if the author doesn't do it for her by then, she puts it down.  I have a 50 page rule.  I gave James about 85 pages and then started skimming desperately looking for the story to pick up.  Note to James:  I don't care about what a man's earlobes look like, nor the kind of eyelashes he has, nor about his lips, his chin, his eyebrows, etc.  Get on with the STORY.   I'll probably give James another shot with a different book down the road, if only to make my wife happy.  Sum:  1 chapter = brilliant.  Next 10 chapters = painful. Remember, I wanted to like this book.  1 star

4.  The Five Dysfuntions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni.   I started this in December & finished it on the first day or two of the year.   A good little book about leadership that is told via the form of a narrative followed by a section explaining the principles.  Much more entertaining than James!   And the narrative wasn't that great.   He talks about the absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, & inattention to results.  Good stuff that I'll using in team building.   3 stars

5.  Who Made God:  Searching for a Theory of Everything, by Edgar Andrews.   Let me just start by saying 10 stars (okay, I know I'm using a 5 star rating standard, but I really enjoyed this book).   Edgar is a brilliant man (with the credentials to back it up) who takes the whole issue of metaphysics, physics and biology and makes it accessible to the non-philosopher & non-scientist.  And that's no easy task, but Edgar does it with wit & humor.  His chapter introductions are worth the price of the book.   While showing that the New Atheists are offering nothing new but repackaged silliness, he takes on the fairytale of Darwinian evolution and has some critical comments for the Intelligent Design camp as well.   Check out Edgar's website as well as Challies' review.   I will read this one again, and soon.  5 stars

6.  The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission, by John Dickson.  This is an excellent book--one I wished I had written because he says everything I would have wanted to say about the issue of 'promoting the Gospel with more than our lips' (the subtitle of the book).   Dickson contends that it is every Christian's duty to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but not all do it in the same way.  Here are some of the many ways he suggests:  promoting the Gospel with our prayers, our money, through the works of the church, through Christian behavior (being beautiful, he says, and he means by that something like 'living a beautiful and attractive life), through our public praise, through our daily conversation.  Endorsed by all the right people (NT Wright, Christopher Wright, Alister Begg, Ravi Zacharias, Richard Bauckman, Jim Belcher, Tremper Longman, Timothy George--and now yours truly), this book is a must-read for believers (I know, the phrased is over used, but I plan to implement this book in my own ministry and leadership training).  5 stars

7.  Of Mice & Men, by John Steinbeck.  I haven't read this classic story since high school.  I enjoyed it this time around, even though I knew the ending that came all too quickly.   Who cannot love Lennie and his dream of feeding rabbits with his buddy George.   Tragic story, but good story telling nevertheless.   4.5 stars

My wife brought home the library (she's a great wife) the DVD with Gary Sinese (George) & John Malkovich (Lennie).  I somehow didn't get the memo that it was released in 1992.   While some of the transitions were a bit wooden & I wished some of the scenes were a bit more fleshed out, this was a good film.  Sinese is one of my favorite actors (since I first saw him on the silver screen in Forrest Gump), and Malkovich played Lennie to perfection.  4 stars 

Scripture completed:  Genesis, Daniel

Piper: If they say, “Are you a Calvinist?” say, “You decide. Here is what I believe . . .”

John Piper gives some good advice on answering the question, "Are you a Calvinist?" 

He says, "If they say, 'Are you a Calvinist?' say, 'You decide. Here is what I believe . . ."

• I believe I am so spiritually corrupt and prideful and rebellious that I would never have come to faith in Jesus without God’s merciful, sovereign victory over the last vestiges of my rebellion. (1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 3:1–4; Romans 8:7).

• I believe that God chose me to be his child before the foundation of the world, on the basis of nothing in me, foreknown or otherwise. (Ephesians 1:4–6; Acts 13:48; Romans 8:29–30; 11:5–7)

• I believe Christ died as a substitute for sinners to provide a bona fide offer of salvation to all people, and that he had an invincible design in his death to obtain his chosen bride, namely, the assembly of all believers, whose names were eternally written in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. (John 3:16; John 10:15; Ephesians 5:25; Revelation 13:8)

• When I was dead in my trespasses, and blind to the beauty of Christ, God made me alive, opened the eyes of my heart, granted me to believe, and united me to Jesus, with all the benefits of forgiveness and justification and eternal life. (Ephesians 2:4–5; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Philippians 2:29; Ephesians 2:8–9; Acts 16:14; Ephesians 1:7; Philippians 3:9)

• I am eternally secure not mainly because of anything I did in the past, but decisively because God is faithful to complete the work he began—to sustain my faith, and to keep me from apostasy, and to hold me back from sin that leads to death. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24; Philippians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:25; John 10:28–29; 1 John 5:16)

This is good advice, and it's a line of thought that I've used for years.  People like to use labels, and often people mean different things with labels.  I once encountered a university student who was enraged when she learned that I was a Calvinist b/c that meant--in he mind--that I endorsed burning heretics.   That was rare, but in my experience in talking to people about these issues over the last 20 years, most people mean 'hyper-Calvinism' when they use the terms 'Calvinism.' Very few people accurately defined Calvinism. 

To read Piper's entire post, click here.

Sometimes, you should just call it quits....

Snowflakes evidence of Intelligent Design?

After having temps above freezing this last week melting much of the snow that had accumulated so far this winter, it started falling from the sky this afternoon.   I love the beauty of falling snow.   But what you can't see with the naked eye can be photographed with high power equipment.   Check this out...

Paul Burwell, edmontonjournal.com

Evidence of intelligent design, or random chances processes at work in a meaningless universe?  

How do you account for the symmetry & beauty?  

Art in nature points to the nature of the Artist.  

Check out more photos online at the Calgary Herald.

Paul Burwell, edmontonjournal.com

Living for experiences is like chasing vapors...

Here's a great quote from Michael Horton on seeking experiences vs. lived experience in light of truth...

"... manufactured and prepackaged "experiences" are incredibly short-lived. I cannot remember most movies I have seen. For whatever brief moments or even hours that I am wrapped in the cocoon of a space ride at Disneyland or am overwhelmed with intense emotion at a concert, the experience leaves as quickly as it came. However, my most enduring experiences are identified with events in which the goal was something other than having an experience. I will never forget hearing the minister say, "I now pronounce you husband and wife." Just words, right? They are words that change our life. "You have cancer." "We got all of the cancer - you're free and clear." "You're pregnant." "You got the job." Reports grounded in objective facts - outside of us and our experience - are the most significant experience generators in our lives.

"Each week, as I join my brothers and sisters in a public confession of sin and our particular sins to God in silence, Christ's ambassador declares that I am forgiven in Christ's name and on the authority of his Word. Regardless of what I feel inside, God's external Word assures me that I have peace with God in his Son. This is not a subjective experience - a peaceful, easy feeling - but an objective announcement. And precisely because of its objectivity - the fact that it is announced to me even when I am not overwhelmed by it emotionally - I get the experience of forgiveness thrown in as well. Living for experiences is like chasing vapors. It is sunsets, not "the sunset experience"; actual expressions of love, not "the love experience"; the Triune God, and not "the worship experience," that turn out to deliver the most important and lasting experiences."

- The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World, p. 224

[HT: routundus]

Alcorn on proving the accuracy of the pro-life position

Randy Alcorn has a great post on proving the accuracy of the pro-life position by the use of photos of aborted children.   This issue is an emotional, often heated one in which many Christians are divided.  

I remember our years of ministry at Texas A&M when pro-life groups would display giant pictures of the horrors of abortion.   It always produced conversation and debate, even among the believers that I knew.  

Alcorn brings clarity to the issue, IMHO, even if it's uncomfortable.

I’ll never forget years ago when a pro-life candidate ran television ads showing aborted babies, and people were outraged. A CBS Evening News reporter declared the abortion debate had reached a “new low in tastelessness.” Strangely, there was no outrage that babies were being killed... only that someone had the audacity to show they were being killed.

The question we should ask is not “Why are pro-life people showing these pictures?” but “Why would anyone defend what’s shown in these pictures?” The real concern about pictures of unborn babies isn’t that they’re gory, but that they prove the accuracy of the pro-life position.

The Holocaust was so evil that words alone couldn’t describe it. Descriptions of Nazi death camps had long been published in American newspapers, but when these papers started printing the pictures of slaughtered people, the American public finally woke up. If not for the pictures, even today most of us wouldn’t understand or believe the Holocaust.

I visited a college campus where a pro-life group had set up displays of aborted babies alongside the victims of the Nazi death camps, the killing fields, American slavery, and other historical atrocities. Signs with warnings about the graphic photographs were posted clearly, so all those who looked did so by choice. I witnessed the profound effect on students and faculty, including those who didn’t want to believe what they were seeing.

Animal rights advocates argue that in order to make their case they must show terrible photographs, such as baby seals being clubbed to death. If there’s a place to look at such pictures, isn’t there a place to look at pictures of abortions? And if abortion isn’t killing babies... then why are these pictures so disturbing?

Was the solution to the Holocaust to ban the disgusting pictures? Or was the solution to end the killing?

Is the solution to abortion getting rid of pictures of dead babies? Or is it getting rid of what’s making the babies dead?

 What do you think?

Can believers please God? Can we displease Him?

Thanks to Justin Taylor for posting this very helpful response to the question, "Does God get disappointed in believers when we disbelieve or disobey."


Dr. David Powlison - Does God get upset when we disobey? from CCEF on Vimeo.

I've been saying this for years. Glad to see David Powlison taking the issue on and speaking with clarity.

Also, for further study, you may want to see the chapter "Pleasing God by Our Obedience: A Neglected New Testament Teaching" by Wayne Grudem in For the Fame of God's Name.

A Tale of Two Presidents

A comparison of two presidents on the single most important issue of social justice in America today.  First of all, President Obama's recent words:

"Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women's health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.

"I am committed to protecting this constitutional right. I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.

"And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opporrtunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams."

 Next, President  Reagan:



Reagan also wrote "Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation" in 1984, well worth checking out.  In it he writes,  "Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court's result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right."

When Reagan penned these words, some 15 million lives had been taken by abortion on demand.   As of today, 50 million.  Today, according to the National Abortion Federation, 35% of women will have had an abortion by the time they are 45 years old. 

Praying today for prophetic voices like Reagan's to speak anew against this social injustice in my home country of the US & my adopted country of Canada, where there are no legal restrictions to abortion on demand.

A Visual Q&A on the Big Questions

My favorite Reformation Creeds are the Heidelberg Catechism & the Westminster Confession of Faith.   The latter has it's own catechism, which you can now explore visually with this cool, artsy project:  Q&A:  An Exploration of the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

This is a work in progress, so you can subscribe RSS to follow the project as more Q&A's are completed.   Hopefully, when they finish Westminster, they'll move on to Heidelberg!

Great Resources: Apologetics 315

Apologetics 315 constantly provides great resources to those interested in defending the faith. From interviews to links, this is a great site.

Typical FB & online debates....

This is precisely why I try to avoid online debates....

Go ahead, I double-do-dare-you to debate this one!

[HT: Z / 22]