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The Two Marys
 I'm not even sure what to say about this at this point. I'm stunned by those who take The DaVinci Code and turn it into the basis for Marian devotion - no, not that Mary - Mary Magdalene. Did these people do the same thing with each episode of the X-Files? Listen, this book is a great ride and will be a very watchable movie, but it's a work of fiction. Even the scholarship it's based on is pretty shaky. I know, I know, Dan Brown claims that the data behind the story is all true. So did the opening shot of Fargo. But the Coen brothers made it up. The truth is, the facts don't bear up under the weight of history. Get Darrell Bock's take on it here.
The two Mary's duke it out on CNN tomorrow night. Set your Tivos!
'The Two Marys': Two Women in Jesus' Life Are Still on Different Paths
Not Your Folks' Faith
The rebound from secularity to spirituality continues in America as young adults seek out Christian orthodoxy and integrated lives of faith in contrast to their more secularly-minded Boomer parents.
What are the watchwords of this quest? Authenticity, integrity, art, culture, and especially community.
"Josh Butler, 27, had a similar experience. He grew up in Salem-Keizer, Ore., with a mom who took him to a church now and then and a dad who wasn't much interested in religion.
As a boy, Josh nurtured a fascination for the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Bible. He saw God as vague and distant but still devoted to the outcast.
He tried an evangelical church in high school, but by college he thought the faith 'closed him off' to others who didn't share it and to the culture at large.
These days, he's a graduate student in theology and a pastor of worship and the arts at Imago Dei Community, a 4-year-old Christian group that's grown from a core of 15 to almost 750 believers.
He says he's found a worshipping community that values art, beauty and even uncertainty. They don't agree on every political point but they are committed to living in community, even in tension. His challenge, he says, is to 'live the essence of the Gospel,' realizing that his understanding of it may change over time."
Star-Telegram | 12/11/2004 | Not your folks' faith:
Greatest Theologian of All-Time
TheologicalStudies.org is polling it's readers to determine who is (in the readers' opinions, anyway) the greatest theologian of all time. No doubt, the results will be skewed by the demographics of their readership (of whom I no absolutely nothing).
Choices include:
Augustine
Aquinus
Luther
Calvin
Edwards
Schleiermacher
Barth
Other
Cast your vote today!
Reformed Protestants No Longer See Images as Idolatrous
During the Reformation, protestant churches in the Reformed tradition (as well as Anabaptists) abandoned the use of the visual in sacred spaces. This reaction was corollary to the recovery of Biblical religion and the exaltation of Scripture, which had largely been abandoned by the late medeival church in favor of an external, highly mediated form of Christianity. So, out went statues, paintings, and altar pieces. The pulpit was left and the Bible and sermon made central. It was, of course, the type of over-correction that happens in such charged times.
Yes of course, the Scripture itself is replete with image and figure of speech, but over time these elements have been downplayed in favor of the propositional in many traditions, especially American evangelicalism.
Now many Reformed churches, which rebelled so severely against the use of the sensory as distracting and idolatrous, and exalted the propositional are now acknowledging the limitations of propositional language and are rediscovering the ability of images to communicate what words can only approximate. Images (now projected by Power Point or as clips from DVDs) are finding their way back into Reformed worship.
Can they overcome the purely trendy and pragmatic usages found in seeker churches which have no real understanding of the ways in which the arts communicate?
Reformed Protestants No Longer See Images as Idolatrous - Christianity Today Magazine
Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
There were rumors of this at the Bill Dembski Intelligent Design talks at EPS last month.
Anthony Flew has decided that the complexity of DNA and the circumstances required for its origin demand an intellegent agency.
"Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life."
Yahoo! News - Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
The following an interview that Gary Habermas has done with Flew about his conversion to deism. It's for an upcoming issue of Philosophia Christi. I found this on Johnny DePoe's Fides Quaerens Intellectum blog. Great, now I'm going to have to think of a new blog name. : | - Step
Atheist Becomes Theist
Christian Esperanto - Christianese and Dis-ease
Andy Crouch is such a great writer. I really think he has the stuff to become the next C.S. Lewis. His observations slay me.
Here he explores the consequences of raising kids in an artificial Christian subculture which has little-to-no connection to the real world. Christian parents think they're protecting their kids from the corruption of the world. The consequence is that they are rendered impotent in the face of the culture at large. They can't understand, dialogue with, or effectively witness to the culture around them. This is not discipleship. This is a form of neglect which leads to atrophy. Not to mention the fact that when you only speak esperanto you can't effectively communicate the gospel to those who don't.
Christian Esperanto - Christianity Today Magazine
X-Files Sequel Still A Possibility
What's Chris Carter been doing for the last 3 years? Well apart from writing for an X-Files video game, I suppose he's been recovering from the Lone Gunman spinoff. I miss seeing his exploration of God and evil that was so pronounced in Millennium and the last couple of seasons of the X-Files. Wonder what a sequal would look like.
X-Files Sequel Still A Possibility
Looks like he's developing a different movie project in the interim:
A Philosophical Investigation (2006)
Blade: Trinity
At the time of this post, Blade: Trinity is coming in at 32% on rottentomatoes.com. He's got a lot of ground to recover if he's going to reach the 56% and 53% that Blade, and Blade II: Bloodhunt received! I can't go to the movies before tomorrow night. :(
My favorite critic quote posted so far:
"Blade:Trinity gives us front row seats to watch the end of Wesley's career and the career of Parker "Former Indie Queen" Posey."
-- Willie Waffle, WAFFLEMOVIES.COM
This movie has the word "Trinity" in its title, so it's Christian, right?
Blade: Trinity
Art, Faith, and the Stewardship of Culture
I know most of you have probably read this before, but it may be worth a second look. This is Greg Wolfe's classic manifesto on cultural stewardship.
When Dave Sims introduced me to Greg Wolfe's vision (was it this very essay?), his vision articulated what we'd been struggling to articulate for a very long time. We had been planning a Christian art & culture reading group to work through some of these ideas, which Jim Parker suggested we turn into an arts conference. The Trinity Arts Conference took on a life of its own long ago (and without me) and several O'Conner, Buechner, and Maritain books later I still find myself driven largely by the vision outlined here. If you've never read it before do so immediately. You'll thank me for it.
Religious Humanism: A Manifesto
Here's Wolfe's follow-up several years later:
Art, Faith, and the Stewardship of Culture.
And please, please don't miss this essential chapter from Maritain's Art and Scholasticism:
Christian Art.
Bob Dylan's Unshakeable Monotheism
The 2004 Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films
Why I Do Not Think the King James Bible Is the Best Translation Available Today
It's interesting that I came across that dial-the-truth website last week since we're spending the last few weeks of the NT103 (Intermediate Greek) doing textual criticism and had to read these articles by Dan Wallace. Here's an example of what actual reasoning and common sense look like from a monster textual critic.
The last article is a direct response to charges made by Gail Riplinger in her New Age Bible Versions and others in that camp.
Why I Do Not Think the King James Bible Is the Best Translation Available Today
The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?
Some Second Thoughts on the Majority Text
The Conspiracy Behind the New Bible Translations
Satan Clause
Dial-the-Truth does it again for your reading pleasure. These last two posts are not jokes: this guy is dead serious.
Note: Since vocal cues and body language don't translate in print, let me clarify. When I say that these last two posts are not jokes, I mean that they are not jokes to the author. I, on the other hand, find them extremely entertaining and DID post them as jokes. - Step
SANTA CLAUS: The Great Imposter
CHRISTIAN ROCK: Blessing or Blasphemy?
Well, if Sandy Patti's not Christian rock, I don't know what is! I used to know a guy that called her "Sandy Fatty." I thought that was mean. Now I realize that it probably should have been "Satan Patti!!!"
If Miles O'Neal wasn't enough help for you to categorize your CD collection, this article should help. At the least you'll see what text-book, unassailable logical argumentation looks like. Plantiga would be proud.
CHRISTIAN ROCK: Blessing or Blasphemy?
'Left Behind' and the Consequences of Bad Theology
I am absolutely not going to defend the Left Behind series as literature, but let me go ahead and get a couple of other criticisms of this article out of the way. <criticism>First, the word "rapture" is in the Bible. It is taken from the Vulgate rendering of ἁρπάζω (harpazō), which most English versions render "snatch up" or "catch up." Try that with the word, "trinity." The word "rapture" is in the text, but its absence wouldn't be enough to dismiss the doctrine. Second, dispensationalists don't pull the doctrine out of thin air. They do the best they can with the Scriptures, as do good Reformed or RC theologians. OK, whew. </criticism>
Now, most of you realize that I attend that bastion of dispensationalsim, DTS (though I'm more of a progressive dispensationalist at this point). Therefore, this is a really interesting question for me. I find it fascinating and incredibly frustrating how the flesh exploits doctrinal weaknesses in this way. I agree with this guy's criticism of the way so many dispensationalists "work out" their approach to culture and the environment. However I disagree that disdain for culture, people, and the environment is inherent in a pre-trib rapture, even of the dispensational variety. Something has gone horribly wrong.
Assuming I don't just "go reformed" before I'm done with my studies I'd like to articulate a reformed or RC approach to culture and the environment from within a dispensational (or progressive dispensational), pre-trib rapture framework. Because although this disdain for the world and the planet represent one possible conclusion of a pre-trib rapture doctrine, it is certainly not a scriptural conclusion.
As a more general question, how do we avoid or correct practical distortions such as the one expressed here?
'Left Behind' and the consequences of bad theology
New U2 Album Explosive In Its Theology
Be sure to go on to the full Kenneth Tanner review at thunderstruck.org as well. I just wanted to make sure I gave ekklesia credit for this.
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