The Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction has three titles for this year’s award: A Cast of Stones by Patrick W. Carr, Truth Runner by Jerel Law, and Dragonwitch by Anne Elisabeth Stengl.
Are you familiar with any of these? Learn more through the link. (via Speculative Faith)
Can we still believe in a historical Adam? That’s the question Dr. Vern S. Poythress, professor of New Testament Interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary, answers in this booklet. He talks through scientists’ claims that Adam and Eve could not have existed, starting with the claim that 99% of the DNA of humans and chimpanzees is identical. Is this accurate? What about an authoritative report that refers to both 99% and 96%? Is that a mistake? No, he observes, both figures come from an interpretation of data using a few restrictions. Without getting too deep for thoughtful readers, Dr. Poythress explains how the data is being interpreted to come up with these figures and what is being left unsaid.
Step by step, asking questions on every other page about what this bit of information could mean to the reader, Dr. Poythress gets to his main point: Darwinist evolution is a framework for interpreting scientific data, and there are other frameworks.
Scientific findings are often reported as unarguable facts, as conclusions naturally drawn from the unbiased data at hand. That simply isn’t true. If a scientist or science reporter assumes gradualism is true, interprets his data set accordingly, and then announces he has proven gradualism with his data, then he has begged the question. This kind of circular reasoning is common, and this booklet aims at tripping it up.
“[W]ithin the mainstream of modern culture, Darwinism is not seen as religious, but merely ‘neutral’ and ‘scientific’,” he writes, yet Darwinists claim to have disproven God’s existence, which is a religious and unscientific claim. Such unscientific claims are being made in the name of science all the time these days, and it falls to those who aren’t scared of religion to point this out.
Dr. Poythress doesn’t shy away from the fact that the Bible states Adam and Eve existed, but he doesn’t argue from the text or any research to prove the point. He is content to poke holes in the claims that they could not have existed as well as criticize the idea that Science sees all, knows all, and cannot be questioned.
This thoughtful, accessible booklet is part of a series from Westminster Seminary Press called “Christian Answers to Hard Questions.” I recommend it to anyone who is wrestling with how to reconcile scientific claims with biblical truths. (I received this title for free as an ebook through Netgalley.com.)
The American Revolution by lordaquaticus on deviantART
When you think of battles or perhaps major events from our War for Independence, what would you say is the most overrated, most hyped-without-substance one that occurred? The Journal of the American Revolution asks this question and gives several answers. By nature of the votes cast, the most overrated battle from the American Revolution is Saratoga. “The war continued on for five more years, making it hardly the major turning point it is often portrayed,” says Jeff Dacus. “And the general who theoretically won it, Horatio Gates, was a coward and a fake,” notes Thomas Fleming.
Yorktown is the runner-up, because it alone did not break the British. Many concurring events went with it to provoke a British retreat.
I find another point interesting because of an old folk tune I vaguely remember. John L. Smith Jr. states: “The most overrated battle would have to be the 1779 Battle of the British Isles – specifically between Captain John Paul Jones’ warship Bonhomme Richard and the British frigate Serapis in the North Sea between England and the Netherlands. Celebrated as a huge American victory, it gave us the dubious quote for our annals of American history by John Paul Jones: “Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight!” But this much-publicized naval battle had no effect whatsoever on the outcome of the Revolutionary War. The most it did was to interfere with British shipping and, while also proving to be an embarrassment for the Lord North ministry, it just tied up some British naval resources from getting to the American seaboard. I liken it to Col. Jimmy Doolittle’s early World War II bombing mission. Both attacks provided an American morale boost, but little else in affecting the war.”
Because Americans believe in beverage liberty.
Gracy Olmstead writes about American coffee-drinking habits, noting that some drink what they drink as a status symbol. My $5 cafe is better than your pitiful homebrew, or words to that effect. One cultural observer says we have taken to coffee like fans of sports, picking a favorite team and arguing with others over brand names and techniques.
She also links to an article on putting butter in your coffee: “You might find it in Singapore, too, where coffee beans (usually of a lower quality) are stir-fried with butter in a wok before being strained through a filter into your cup. These morning drinks are said to provide energy throughout your day, and the same was touted about the butter coffee I was about to order — something that will not only rev up my body and mind, but keep me full all morning.”
People, I tell you. If I see someone put low-fat butter in their coffee as a way to hold to some kind of diet, I may not be able to restrain myself.
Are you familiar with NoiseTrade? It’s a site where you can download a large variety of new music for free and leave a tip for the artists at your discretion. I recently downloaded an album from Christian rapper Propaganda. It’s strong stuff, not my thing really but I’m stretching myself. I also listened to a little Indie trio named Joseph. If you’re up for a great sound in worship music, listen to the sampler by As Isaac, a Chattanooga-based band.
Musicians say NoiseTrade is a great promotional platform. When you download music, you are invited to share your activity on your social networks. You also fork over an email address to get your download code, which allows the band to thank you or tell you about new music later on.
This year, NoiseTrade has launched a book service on the same model. Some of the title look like free ebooks you would get anywhere, but many of them look great. Random House is offering these titles at the moment. In Mysteries and Thrillers, you can see Ted Dekker has a promotional chapter available. Author Cliff Graham is racking up in the top download today. Are you a voracious enough reader to dip into this service? Let us know.
In my last post, I shared a featurette on the movie Noah, coming out this Friday. I was impressed that leaders like Greg Thornbury praised it for deep thinking. Dr. Thornbury is the president of The King’s College in New York City and the author of Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry
Only with the juxtaposition against radical depravity can mercy actually make sense. Failing this understanding, you cannot sustain Christian theism. Otherwise, mercy becomes weak, expected, and even demanded. Seeing Russell Crowe-as-Noah grit his teeth and war against real flesh-and-blood evil makes sin, a notion seemingly incredible to Hollywood, to be real. As a viewer, locked into the gaze of the film, you’re thinking, I’m with God, and this Noah guy. It makes the redemption and mercy theme of the film compelling, even if Aronofsky takes a slightly perverse (and admittedly extra-biblical) route to make the point. We grew up in a world that makes Noah nice. Noah is not nice.
The writers, he says, approach their film as expansive commentary, not biblical illustration. (via Hunter Baker)
Phil Cooke has rounded up some serious Christian leaders and teachers to praise the movie based on the story of Noah in Genesis. Watch this video and tell me what you think.
I’ve been meaning to post a very short review of three of Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole mysteries. There’s a whole list of books in the series, but the trilogy of The Redbreast, Nemesis, and The Devil’s Star form a self-contained unit within it, and make an interesting read in themselves. I reviewed Redbreast sometime back, and read The Devil’s Star without reviewing it. Recently I read Nemesis (out of order), and gained a new appreciation.
Nesbø’s Oslo police detective character, Harry Hole (pronounced “hoo-leh”) is difficult to evaluate. He pushes credibility, because it’s hard to believe that anyone this alcoholic and reflexively self-destructive has managed to maintain a career in a modern police department. But in these books Hole has begun a difficult — but promising — relationship with a single mother, which inspires him (intermittently) to attempt to reform himself. This would give him one added thing he actually cares about in his life, beyond police work.
The running narrative in this trilogy involves another detective, a popular and charismatic one, whom Hole suspects of illegal activities and the murder of a colleague. Hole hates him, but is almost seduced into corruption by him.
What’s fascinating about the Harry Hole books is the multiple layers of mystery involved. Once the mystery is solved, there’s plenty of book left, and the reader discovers there’s a mystery within the mystery. Then there’s a further mystery within that. It unpeels like an onion.
This may relate to one of Harry’s mottos — “There is no such thing as a paradox.” Someone informs him in the third book that paradoxes do in fact exist. It seems to me possible (I’m not sure) that that discovery is the whole point of the books.
A few weeks ago, a couple guys invited me to participate in a Google+ group they called Legendary Author Battles (LAB). It’s a shared storytelling like we have discussed here in the past. One writer begins, the other continues, and back and forth until a conclusion. Then Simon Cantan makes a video of the authors reading their parts.
This is my first one, and even though I wish I could have taken my reading dramatics up several notches, I think the story itself is pretty good. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.
The story is an urban fantasy which pits a telepathic librarian against an urban developer. The businessman wants to buy up the neighborhood, but the librarian and his neighbors won’t go along with him. That standard beginning doesn’t come anywhere near describing the whole story, so give it a listen and tell me what you think.
I shared this story with Dave Higgins, who has a new book out.
Hugh Howey recommends two books for overcoming the odds against you: Outliers: The Story of Success
