Last Thursday, I mentioned the blog on visiting various churches, made a crack about visiting a Lutheran church, and what do you know but he visted a Missouri Synod Lutheran church yesterday. He avoided the snakes too–a double blessing.
Category Archives: Religion
Norwegian Margit Sandemo in English
The best-selling author of The Legend of the Ice People series is having the works translated into English now. From a Guardian interview linked from The Literary Saloon:
Her name automatically raises a lot of literary snobbery in Scandinavia – my Swedish friend, Helena, says that some libraries refused to stock Sandemo’s books (according to Sandemo, this was because they were worried people would steal them). The critics are not kind, but Sandemo says she doesn’t care. “Those people who think they know what taste people should have, they are difficult. ‘This is not a good book,’ they say. I don’t care if there are people who say it is not good literature, because I just think of my many readers who are more important.”
The interview describes some horrible events from Sandemo’s life, including her claim to having killed a man who atttempted to rape her at age 11 or 12. Perhaps her early trauma led her into the occult spirituality she appears to have now. Not that people have to have trauma like this to take up with demons, but it seems to be fertile ground for doing so.
Pardon me a moment for getting personal, but this interview reminds me of a story I read this morning. A woman said she had been sexually abused by her father and his team of Satanists in southern California several years ago. The details she gave are horrifying, but perhaps more horrifying than the details is the idea that such abusive men could be forgiven–that their sins could be passed over by the perfect judge and creator of the universe. And that’s what she said occured. Her father repented and asked her forgiveness as he lay dying in a hospital. How could the Lord forgive such men? Because everyone one of us is just a guilty as they are.
John Piper has a great message on Psalm 51, which deals with this idea near the beginning. The gospel, the love of God, is both shocking and fantastic.
Ignorant Do-Gooders
Tony Woodlief is quoting Dorothy Sayers:
Apart from a possible one per cent of intelligent and instructed Christians, there are three kinds of people we have to deal with. There are the frank and open heathen, whose notions of Christianity are a dreadful jumble of rags and tags of Bible anecdote and clotted mythological nonsense. There are the ignorant Christians, who combine a mild gentle-Jesus sentimentality with vaguely humanistic ethics–most of these are Arian heretics. Finally, there are the more or less instructed church-goers, who know all the arguments about divorce and auricular confession and communion in two kinds, but are about as well equipped to do battle on fundamentals against a Marxian atheist or a Wellsian agnostic as a boy with a pea-shooter facing a fan-fire of machine-guns.
Note commenter John M point about devotional life vs. service. This is all too convicting.
A Church Tour
A man I grew up with is blogging about his visits to various churches in our area. He’s a thoughtful guy with many good observations. When he talks about going to his parents’ church, he’s talking about my church. Will he make it to a Lutheran church one of these days? I don’t know. People have to draw the line somewhere, and what with all the snake-handling going on there . . . 🙂
Singing Dicey Hymns
Andree Seu talks about singing, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” and other dicey hymns.
“Again, the Opposite Meaning”
The Conservative Intelligencier points out a report on National Geographic’s Gospel of Judas. As you might expect, it is not as it appears, but I must ask what would it matter if it was as it appeared. What if a manuscript from 150-200 AD said Judas was a hero with noble motives? Would it really change anything? It would be fiction, even if old fiction.
Arrested for Proselytizing
I got an email yesterday passing on this prayer request:
Pray urgently for our dear brother Argyris Petrou, a minister and missionary serving in Athens, Greece teaching and church planting. Argyris was arrested for proselytizing, which is against the law there and will stand trial this Wednesday, 11 June. Argyris could go to jail for 2-3 years. Imagine that in the land Paul evangelized so long ago! Pray for wisdom and peace for Argyris and his wife Dena, as well as their three sons. Pray also for the solicitors who will represent Argyris as well as the judge who will hear the case, that God would protect and deliver Argyris.
UPDATE: The court Argyris ‘not guilty!’ Praise the Lord.
Intercede For Each Other
Let me pass on these thoughts from Mart De Haan of RBC.
He has made us interdependent on one another, dependent on Him, and hopeless apart from that for which we can take no credit. He has urged us to share in one another’s growth and joy by holding one another up before His throne of grace.
“Muhammad and Jesus”
Dennis Ingolfsland, over at The Recliner Commentaries, has posted a web page with links to short biographies of Muhammad and Jesus. Just text, from original sources, without commentary.
Manifesto
Jared makes a good point on the Evangelical Manifesto released this week. “Evangelicalism won’t be reformed by a long document full of distinctions signed by a who’s who, particularly if that who’s who thinks signing this thing is one of the most meaningful things they can do.”
I wonder if this manifesto isn’t largely a reaction to the public statements of people like the Evangelical Environmental Network.