President's Day
How Old Are Your Encyclopedias?
A set of Encyclopaedia Britannica from 1797 has been found in Essex, England, making it the oldest privately owned set known to exist. The family bought it for £15 several years ago.
“We had no idea that they were particularly rare or unusual but we’ve always loved them for their interesting contents and wonderful smell,” the owner said.
The courage of God
Evangelical Outpost linked today to this article, questioning the traditional understanding of the martyrdom of Lady Jane Grey. Even if all it says is true, for me it doesn’t diminish the pathos of her youthful martyrdom.
Then I read an article about Auschwitz in Smithsonian Magazine.
So I’ve been contemplating human suffering today.
Have you ever thought this thought? I’ve thought it many times: If I had been God, and had known that giving human beings free will would result in all the evil and horror that have in fact been produced, I wouldn’t have given them free will. And if the human project was unsatisfactory without free will, I’d have just skipped the whole business.
I have an answer that satisfies me intellectually. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”
Apparently, in God’s economy, the good He is creating far outweighs all the innumerable evils perpetrated by man since the fall of Adam. From the viewpoint of eternity, we’ll look back and say, “Yes, it was well worth it.”
Now that answer raises a hundred questions in my mind. Questions for which I have no answer, and for which we have been given no plain answers.
This, I guess, calls for faith.
But it also argues, I think, for courage on God’s part. Granted, He saw the outcome from the beginning. But part of that outcome, I believe, was His own assumption of all that evil on the cross.
I read somewhere that, in the early years of the Superman comic strip, the writers came to a crisis when they’d made their character so powerful that they couldn’t come up with a challenging enough opponent for him anymore. That was when they invented Kryptonite. Something that took all that power away.
God did it in real life.
I can’t find the reference, but G. K. Chesterton wrote somewhere that all those scoffers, who call God evil for creating an evil world, are right in a sense, and that God acknowledged it (in a way) by explicitly accepting the punishment for creating all that evil.
Whatever else you think, I think you’ve got to admit it’s no cowardly strategy.
Interesting Premise at Together for the Gospel Conference
Why Are So Many Young Black Men in Emergency Rooms?
When Dr. John Rich was at the Boston City Hospital, he assumed the young black men who frequently showed up in his emergency room were somehow responsible for their violent wounds. But when he started interviewing them, he learned that many of them were victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Some had been robbed, others had talked to the wrong girl at a party or been caught in the line of fire while walking home,” reports this NPR interview with Dr. Rich and Roy Martin, Rich’s urban cultural interpreter.
Dr. Rich is working to deal with the trauma these men have experienced in order to help them truly heal.
Auralia’s Colors Set Giveaway
A Fantasy/Sci-Fi blog is giving away two sets of Auralia’s Colors (via Jeffrey Overstreet)
Auralia's Colors Set Giveaway
A Fantasy/Sci-Fi blog is giving away two sets of Auralia’s Colors (via Jeffrey Overstreet)
The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly
For a few years, mystery novelist Michael Connelly’s books bounced back and forth between two recurring main characters—Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch, and Terry McCaleb, retired FBI profiler. Sometimes both at once. But Connelly killed McCaleb off a few books back, and since then he seems to be casting about for a new regular series, mixing and matching characters in various combinations.
The Scarecrow appears to be an attempt to re-launch the adventures of crime reporter Jack McEvoy and FBI profiler Rachel Walling. They teamed up (as investigators and lovers) in a much earlier novel, The Poet, and Rachel also featured in a recent Harry Bosch book. But Connelly here drops big hints that he’s carving out a future for them as a team.
I applaud this, but wish they could have been re-launched in a slightly better book. Not that The Scarecrow is bad. It moves right along, and builds tension nicely, but I wouldn’t list it among Connelly’s best works. Of course, that’s a pretty high bar. Continue reading The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly
Old Spice is Manly
I must share this commercial. You may have seen it already. Apparently over 700,000 have watched it on YouTube. If I didn’t already love using Old Spice, this ad would make me consider trying it.