One of the things The Most Reverend Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, said tonight to a packed sanctuary was “Jesus of Nazareth is the only person who draws people to himself. The church must lift him up so He can draw all men to himself.” I was blessed to sing “We are God’s People,” “Shine, Jesus, Shine,” and “Christ Shall Have Dominion” with Presbyterians and Anglicans. It’s too easy to doubt the faith of those unlike me, especially with news of terrible things in the other denominations. It’s too easy to broadbrush without learning any details about individual congregations. But tonight we celebrated Jesus in unity under the teaching of a man, from halfway around the world, who is just like us.

Via World Views, this fascinating article by the English writer and physician Theodore Dalrymple, on the question of whether religious people are, or are not, actually nicer people than the secular kind.

You won’t agree with everything, but it’s a fascinating snapshot.

A Litany of Humility. “From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.”

I’m happy to report that my TV has decent color again. I told you a couple weeks ago how a nearby lightning strike messed up its color, leaving the people with purple faces. The set’s internal degaussing function may have been gradually mproving the problem, but the progress was at a rate of about one pixel per start-up.

My renter persuaded me to take a magnet and pass it over the screen in the bad places. Not just a couple passes, but a real “scrubbing.” And behold, I’ve got my picture back.

Now if only there were anything worth watching on.

The weather today was wonderful (or so I surmised from looking out the library windows and checking the temperatures online). One of those ideal days—lightly clouded skies (though it was clouding up by the time I took my walk), neither too cold nor too hot—that you imagine when you’re young, thinking about what the future will be like. It’s never like that, of course, but sometimes you get a little of the weather.

The world is a-buzz today with news of the publication of letters from Mother Teresa, in which she expressed feelings that God was far away from her.

This is news?

Only to people who a) have never been serious Christians (granted, there are a lot of those) or b) have never read any serious Christian writers. Sure, you won’t get much about Dark Nights of the Soul from Joel Osteen or Benny Hinn, but try reading St. Augustine. Or Pascal. Or C.S. Lewis.

Make up your minds, folks—you can criticize us for being Pollyannas, out of touch with the harsh realities of life, or you can call us posers because we don’t always feel the joy of the Lord.

But you can’t have it both ways.

So which shall we choose? Experience or truth? The left wing of an airplane, or the right? Love or integrity? Study or service? Evangelism or discipleship? The front wheels of a car, or the rear? Subjective knowledge or objective knowledge? Faith or obedience?

Damn all false antitheses to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings whose oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ. The truth is that Jesus Christ is Lord of all—of the truth and of our experience. The Bible insists that we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. (D. A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, p. 234) (found here)

I’m a little later than usual tonight, as I had to go to the dentist for my semiannual (I think that’s right. Can’t be biennial, can it?) check-up and cleaning. Since I know you’re keeping score, you’ll be relieved to know that no cavities were discovered. However there is that tooth with the old root canal that’s going to crumble like an abandoned house deck in Florida one of these days. And there’s the other tooth that’s mostly amalgam, which also needs replacement. But I put them off. I always think that I’ll maybe have some money six months from now.

If you go to this page (which you probably can’t read because it’s in Norwegian), and scroll down (unless you’re reading this article in the future, when everything’s down in Archive territory), you’ll find a story headlined, “Homoprest nekter å vie enkjønnede samliv.” Which means, “Homosexual pastor refuses to bless same-sex relationships.” I’ll translate the rest for you, because this is really interesting, and I can’t find a report in English anywhere:

Homosexual priest Erik Johansson of the Swedish (Lutheran) Church has chosen to live in celibacy. Johansson refuses to bless same-sex relationships, even though this may lead to his expulsion from his own church.

Unfortunately this web site charges you to get the rest of the story, but I really want to know more. It seems to me this is precisely the way it ought to be. A homosexual willing to submit to the same sexual morality the Bible demands of all of us, which in his case means celibacy, is qualified to operate as a pastor and upholds Biblical teaching. Maybe I’m missing something, but this guy sounds like a hero who ought to be celebrated throughout the evangelical world.

Alan of Thinklings says, “It’s amazing what God is doing on the other side of the globe. When we’re able to support guys working for the gospel in places like China and Africa, it feels like buying stock in Microsoft in 1981.” This in response to 10,000 Conversions to Christianity per Day in China