Here’s a touching quote from Bonhoeffer’s diary, “Today I encountered a completely unique case in my pastoral counseling, which I’d like to recount to you briefly and which despite its simplicity really made me think. . . .
All posts by Phil
Anne Rice Interview
Christianity Today interviewed Anne Rice on following Christ without the institutional church (thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet). I’m sure the whole interview is interesting for conversation at the least, but I noticed this paragraph, which our friend Hunter Baker (may his books always be in print) may enjoy:
The damning of the secular culture is upsetting and embarrassing. Secularism in America has done great things. It’s allowed people to live here whether they’re Catholic, Protestant, or Muslim, and it has protected people from the extreme beliefs of their neighbors.
Oh, the soothing influence of secularism. If not for it, we would have slaughtered our neighbors and warred with the nations all in the name of some irrelevant deity.
In related news, Jared Wilson has quit the ninja. I doubt he will live out the year, but I hear ninjas are turning over a new leaf. The tolerating influence of secularism, you know.
New Trailer for "To End All Wars" Movie
This is a great movie and based on a true account of Scottish POWs in Japan during WWII.
Joe Carter Facts
Our friend Rachel Motte has been documenting several facts about Evangelical Outpost founder Joe Carter. Others have joined in. Here are some:
- @DustinSteeve: John Calvin died just before he was to write his magnum opus: The Institutes of Joe Carter.
- @RachelMotte: If @joecarter888 were President, Israel and Palestine would be united by their efforts to get into his good graces.
- @RachelMotte: When Anselm proposed that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought, he was referring to Joe Carter.
- @RachelMotte:When Paris fled, trembling in #Iliad 2.36, he was overwhelmed by the impact of Joe Carter’s brain waves. Also his fists.
- @RachelMotte:If @joecarter888 were President, the Presidential teleprompter would read HIM
- @RachelMotte:If @joecarter888 were President, he would fix the economy. With common household items.
- @joecarter888 once caught his own stare in the mirror. Space-time has yet to recover.
- @RachelMotte:#joecarterfacts are not copies of #chucknorrisfacts. They are the Platonic Form Chuck Norris only wishes he could partake in.
- @RachelMotte:Twitter was over capacity because Joe Carter forgot to turn the internet on this morning.
- California has not fallen into the Pacific because Joe Carter knit the San Andreas Fault together with his own hair.
Thanks, Joe. Happy Birthday.
A New Favorite Word
Jocoseriosity: half-joking, half-serious, like this blog.
How many times have you hear someone speak with jocoseriosity? He makes his point with a slight spice of humor, and half the audience loves it, the other half hates it. Both remember it, so the jocoserious speaker wins.
Silver Tequila
And now for something completely different: a Tequila commercial.
This is thought-provoking. Is liberty or morality improved by using it, by thinking through your choices instead of following convention?
The Book Haven
Just added The Book Haven to our bloogroll (via Frank Wilson). Looks like a good, smart blog.
Stephen Prothero and Reviews of "God is Not One"
Earlier this year, several blogs participated in a review tour for Stephen Prothero’s book, God is not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Rule the World and Why Their Differences Matter. Here’s a quote from the introduction.
To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each tradition attempts to solve a different aspect of the human condition. For example:
- Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission
- Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation
- Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order
- Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is enlightenment
- Hinduism: the problem is the endless cycle of reincarnation / the solution is release
- Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is our return back to God and to our true home
When we gloss over these differences we fail to appreciate each religion on its own terms.
The book appears to be a survey and not an apologetic. This Lutheran reviewer said she wanted more from the Christianity chapter “wishing I could add to further clarification regarding . . . consequences that 95 theses had on the world.” Unfortunately, the list of blogs doesn’t link directly to the reviews, save one. So here’s a link to a review from someone who disagrees with the book’s central premise.
Noir Fiction Is About Sad Sacks
Otto Penzler writes about noir fiction (via Joel Miller)
Look, noir is about losers. The characters in these existential, nihilistic tales are doomed. They may not die, but they probably should, as the life that awaits them is certain to be so ugly, so lost and lonely, that they’d be better off just curling up and getting it over with. And, let’s face it, they deserve it.
"Beyond the utmost bounds of human thought"
“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!”
Manly Poems, selected by the writers and readers of The Art of Manliness (via SB).