For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles

I’m familiar with three of the people you see in this trailer, and I’m confident in the quality of their work. On that basis I’m sure this is worthy watching with a small group. It asks what our salvation is for and offers compelling answers.

Joshua Rogers, writing for Focus on the Family, says, “I suppose the most remarkable thing was how the series helped me fall in love with the Gospel in a way that I hadn’t since that awesome spaceship-themed Vacation Bible School at Calvary Baptist Church when I was in fifth grade.” He means that in the best way possible and gets the director to answer some questions on his objectives.

Andy Crouch says, “It is designed to help the church reclaim our true calling: to live out our salvation, in the words its title borrows from the Orthodox writer Alexander Schmemann, “for the life of the world.” …Schmemann’s breathtaking sacramental view of ordinary life is here, as are Kuyper’s distinctive spheres” (subscription required).

Learn more about For the Life of the World here.

“What Is Thy Only Comfort In Life and Death?”

Mur des Réformateurs - Reformation Wall 2

Churches with what we call high liturgy have suffered bad press from many believers who find it easier to point their faithlessness in their congregations than in their own, low liturgy churches. They accept the bad idea that creeds are lifeless and only spontaneity is of the Holy Spirit. In doing so, they have missed their own rich Christian history, which can be rediscovered in the catechisms and confessions of the holy catholic (universal) church. To those who are unfamiliar with these writings, let me give you the first two questions from the Heidelberg Catechism, one of the written teachings to emerge from the Reformation.

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?



Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

Question 2. How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?

Answer: Three; the first, how great my sins and miseries are; the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance.

The second question sets up the rest of the catechism, and the first question–isn’t it glorious?

‘Suspect,’ by Robert Crais

I generally don’t read books featuring dogs (except for Dean Koontz books, where you can’t avoid them), for the same reason I don’t own a dog. It’s because I love dogs dearly, and firmly believe that no master (certainly including me) has ever been worthy of his canine pet. I’m not sure I can bear the purity of a dog’s love.

Which made Robert Crais’ novel Suspect difficult in places. That’s not to say I didn’t like it. But if you aren’t an actual dog hater, this one will break your heart – in a good way.

Scott James is a Los Angeles cop who’s gotten derailed on his career path to SWAT. He was shot and severely injured in an ambush where his female partner was killed. After months of recovery and rehab, he’s ready to return to work – pretending he’s in better shape than he is. He’s not fit enough for SWAT anymore, so he’s switching to the K-9 squad.

At the end of his training he meets Maggie, a German Shepherd who was formerly a bomb sniffing dog in Afghanistan. She lost her partner and was wounded too, and is hostile to anyone who’s not “pack.” But something in her touches Scott, and he gets permission to try her as his partner. They’re both on probation, they both have PTSD, and they’re not entirely ready for service.

Scott starts digging into the ambush where his partner was killed, and begins to suspect police involvement and a cover-up. Keeping his head down while trying to camouflage his own (and his dog’s) physical shortcomings, he walks a dangerous path. But the man has a Best Friend.

Exciting, gripping, and deeply moving, Suspect is a tremendously entertaining read. Crais has taken a risk in writing a stand-alone not related to his Cole and Pike novels, but he succeeds completely. Highly recommended, with the usual cautions for adult themes and language.

Miller’s Liebowitz Still Worth Reading

Here’s an essay of author Walter M. Miller and his classic apocalyptic novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. “Along with Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles,” “A Canticle for Leibowitz” was one of the first novels to escape from the science-fiction ghetto and become a staple of high-school reading lists.”

Within the cathedral of post-apocalyptic and dystopian literature, there ought to be a small sanctum reserved for books produced out of the author’s personal experience with cataclysmic events. Other works that fit into this niche include Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” which was inspired by the writer having witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, and “The Forever War,” Joe Haldeman’s 1974 novel, which drew directly on his tour of duty in Vietnam.

(via Books, Inq.)

Do You Take Fascism With Your Coffee?

Swiss retailer Migros is apologizing profusely over distributing coffee creamers with images of Hitler and Mussolini on the lids. The creamers were designed to resemble cigar bands with the likenesses of many different people, including the two dictators. The company responsible for the designs doesn’t see a problem with. Why should it matter if Hitler’s face appears on a coffee creamer lid? they said. But Migros said it is an “inexcusable blunder” that should never have been delivered.

If I received one of these as a customer in a restaurant, I’d laugh it off and wonder if I was being poisoned, but if I was a businessman responsible for selling them, I think I’d fire someone.

Marilynne Robinson and American Fiction

Casey Cep wrote, “Marilynne Robinson is one of the great religious novelists, not only of our age, but any age. Reading her new novel Lila, one wonders how critics could worry that American fiction has lost its faith, though such worries make one think there might well have been wedding guests at Cana who complained about the shortage of water after witnessing the miracle with wine.” (via Alan Jacobs)

Would That They Were Actually Pagan?

C. S. Lewis wrote, “When grave persons express their fear that England is relapsing into Paganism, I am tempted to reply, `Would that she were.’” Because pagans have been shown to be convertible to Christianity, but post-Christians have shown more resistance. Pagans appeal to gods who cannot hear them and suffer for it. Post-Christians still benefit from the God they rejected and believe they have earned all they receive. Lewis wished we could find our spiritual poverty again so that we would see the riches to be found in Christ Jesus.

Today Englishman Bob Davey has taken up saving an abandoned church in Norfolk from local pagans. After cleaning up the church, he worked over the graveyard. “But even after he had driven the Devil from the door, still his acolytes returned. On every Witches’ Sabbath – special dates in the Pagan calendar – Mr Davey spent the night camped out in the church, on guard duty.” It can get ugly.

Meanwhile, “The Church of England is trying to recruit pagans and spiritual believers as part of a drive to retain congregation numbers.”

Laughter Worth Sharing: Jimmy Fallon

Here’s a strong example of Jimmy Fallon’s great interviewing technique. He’s talking with Bradley Cooper about The Elephant Man, a play Cooper says inspired him to become an actor. Watch and learn, friends.

Announcing a New Spurgeon Center

This just in. Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has begun to build a center to house it’s a extensive collection of documents from the great preacher Charles H. Spurgeon and offer space for lectures and study. They’re calling it the Charles Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching.

Asimov on Creativity

A 1959 essay on creativity by Issac Asimov, that has not been published, has been released by a friend at MIT. In it, Asimov talks about the origin of the theory of evolution, which he says was devised by two men independently, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.

A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others.

Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)

He goes on to say a team hoping to develop great new ideas needs to become comfortable with each other and inspire each other to look forward. (via Prufrock)