The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.
Click here to see the complete report.
Dreams and Visions: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World? by Tom Doyle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was an amazing book! I have to admit I was a bit skeptical at first. I typically don’t give much credence to “dreams” or “visions,” but the overall argument of the book is compelling. Doyle lists many examples of Jesus appearing to Muslims all over the Middle East, and the cumulative effect is astonished gratitude for how God is showing His face to people trapped in dark places. The stories of torture, persecution, and execution were heart-breaking, and stirred me up to pray more diligently for my brothers and sisters in Muslim lands. If my father, mother, brother, son, or daughter were being tortured in an Iranian prison, I’d pray for them every day! Sadly, we get so distracted by our petty problems in America (Land of Freedom and Plenty), that we forget the daily struggle and danger confronting so many thousands of our spiritual family. God is at work in the Middle East–will we join Him?
(Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”)
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post (“I am a Sodomite”), here is an insightful piece from Dr. Timothy Tennent, President of Asbury Theological Seminary, on why we should make a big deal about homosexuality. While I agree with Dr. Tennett, my concerns about institutionalized covetousness in the Church still stand. Do we really need all the huge buildings!???
… and so are you. Now that I’ve got your attention, what arcane point am I trying to make? I’ve been ruminating on the use of “sodomite” in certain conservative Christian circles. The motive seems to be Christians not wanting to compromise on this important issue and wanting to call a spade a spade. Since so many Christians have prevaricated and danced around the issue of same-sex attraction, we want to boldly call a sin a sin, and so some men that I respect deeply have taken to using the term “sodomy” and “sodomite.” I believe the main target of this epithet is militant, politically-aggressive homosexuals. In reaction, some Christians adopt the visage and manner of a desert prophet in order to meet this challenge head on. I agree with my brothers in their concerns to be bold and courageous in these perilous times. I believe Christianity and Biblical morality is under severe attack, and I support their desire to fight the good fight. However, if they want to talk like Ezekiel-the-sexually-explicit, I hope they can also talk more like Ezekiel in chapter 16 of his magnificent book.
In Ezekiel 16, God pronounces judgment on Jerusalem through Ezekiel, and connections between sexual sin and idolatry are rampant. But, in the midst of this grim sermon, God compares Jerusalem to Sodom. Ezekiel says that Jerusalem has become “more corrupt than they [the Sodomites] in all your ways. As I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done” (Ezek. 16:47-48). What did Jerusalem do that was so wicked? ”Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it” (Ezek. 16:49-50).
What is interesting is the almost total silence on the issue of homosexuality.
Father Hunger: Why God Calls Men to Love and Lead Their Families by Douglas Wilson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This should be required reading for all fathers, or for those who desire to be fathers. Leaders in every walk of life (especially pastors and teachers) will also profit from Wilson’s shrewd insights into Scripture, society, economics, politics, and the practical mechanics of family life. Wilson’s message on the importance of fathers may not be popular, but the evidence of a growing problem is undeniable. A disturbing number of our children are growing up without fathers, or with fathers who are “absent.” Even worse is the father who comes home every night to his family, but ignores them. This book kicked my lazy rear in this regard, but also gave pastoral encouragement to stop abdicating and to lay my life down for my children.
At this point, a little disclosure is in order–Wilson was my teacher in college and a mentor to all of us. I also had the privilege of volunteering briefly at the coffee and bookshop run by his father, Jim Wilson. So I have seen the effects of faithful fathering in Wilson’s own family. I mention this simply because some people read Wilson’s material and react sharply to his sarcasm and his strident approach. There is no doubt that Wilson holds his beliefs firmly and argues passionately for his convictions, but I wish sometimes that readers could see the twinkle in his eyes and hear his laughter, even as he says some things that sound outlandish to our postmodern ears.
Especially interesting is the research included in the Appendix. It is done by the firm, Economic Modeling Specialists, and shows the monetary damage done to our national economy by cycles of “delinquent fathers.”
But the point of the book is not to blame “the liberals,” or the “lazy poor.” Wilson identifies the problem as sin, which equally afflicts rich and poor, liberal or conservative. No one can deny the importance of fathers in the lives of their children, and readers should apply the lessons of this book to themselves first. After they’ve focused on being fully present in the lives of their own children, perhaps they can think then about giving the book to their neighbors (Matt. 7:3).
(Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”)
“The popularity of the Gospel of Thomas among Americans is another indication that there is indeed ‘the American religion’: creed-less, Orphic, enthusiastic, proto-gnostic, post-Christian. Unlike the canonical gospels, that of Judas Thomas the Twin spares us the crucifixion, makes the resurrection unnecessary, and does not present us with a God named Jesus. No dogmas could be founded upon this sequence (if it is a sequence) of apothegms. If you turn to the Gospel of Thomas, you encounter a Jesus who is unsponsored and free. No one could be burned or even scorned in the name of this Jesus, and no one has been hurt in any way, except perhaps for those bigots, high church or low, who may have glanced at so permanently surprising a work.”
Bloom captures why the Jesus of Thomas is so alluring to post-moderns: ”The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas calls us to knowledge and not to belief, for faith need not lead to wisdom; and this Jesus is a wisdom teacher, gnomic and wandering, rather than a proclaimer of finalities. You cannot be a minister of this gospel, nor found a church upon it. The Jesus who urges his followers to be passerby is a remarkably Whitmanian Jesus, and there is little in the Gospel of Thomas that would not have been accepted by Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman” (The Gospel of Thomas, 111-112).
Authors like Anne Douglas (The Feminization of American Culture) and Leon Podles (The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity) have documented what might be called the “feminization of the church.” More recent offerings like Why Men Hate Going to Church bring statistical data and anecdotal evidence that men just don’t seem to like, or fit in, at most churches. While I think these authors all make good points, I was recently struck at how “feminine” certain Puritan theologians were. For many in my conservative Reformed circles, the Puritans are the standard against which we measure our own orthodoxy and our spiritual fervor. Many Puritans are revered for their “manly” courage and heroic gospel deeds. I don’t want to belittle any of that–I simply want suggest that some of the these “manly” Puritans spoke, wrote, and preached in quite “feminine” terms.
Interestingly, the tension between authoritative text and tradition is not unique to Christianity. It also seems to exist in Islam. In a review of Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty, Philip Johnson relates an interesting dynamic:
“When coercive Muslims want to justify their ways by referring to some Muslim precept, they usually find the desired text in the Hadiths rather than in the Qur’ran.
“It is strange that some Muslims seem to prefer the Hadiths to the Qur’ran, because only the latter records the revelation by God (Allah) to Muhammed. Muhammed himself always distinguished between teachings that he had received by revelation and statements that came only from his own wisdom. Muhammed is revered by Muslims as the faithful messenger of the divine revelation, but when he spoke from his own ordinary human wisdom, he was as capable of error as other men.
“Despite this distinction, some Muslims will even say that a line from the Hadiths can supersede a teaching of the Qur’an itself. Mustafa [the author of the book, and a personal friend of Johnson] has told me that he admires the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. Perhaps a similar doctrine might be of benefit to Islamic teaching.[1]
[1] Philip Johnson, “Peace-Seeking Muslims” in Touchstone, March/April 2012, 10-11.
Michael Horton’s People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology continues to intrigue and inspire me on almost every page. I love his description of modern idolatry:
“[Idolatry] requires its gods to make themselves available, fully present, visible, which means capable of being possessed and, if need be, manipulated to produce whatever the individual’s or group’s felt needs are determined to be at any moment.
“The nihilistic eros of the consumer society, which seems to have drawn much of American Christianity into its wake, creates a desire that can never be satisfied. Ads and show windows offer us a perpetual stream of icons promising to fulfill our ambitions to have the life that they represent: a fully realized eschatology. Handing our credit card to the salesperson can be a sacrament of this transaction between sign and signified. Yet this anonymous space of endless consumption is the parody of the place of promise: true shalom. Consuming images, living on the surface of immanence, we refuse to be called out of ourselves by an external word that would truly unite us to God and our neighbor. Silently and alone, we surf channels and Web sites, window-shopping for identities (p. 59).”
Thus begins Joe Keysor’s provoking article in the March/April 2012 issue of Touchstone magazine. (Yes, I’m behind in my Touchstone reading …) Although this article is sadly not available on-line at the Touchstone web-site, it worth buying the entire issue just for this article.
Keysor subtitles his article, “The Secular and Anti-Christian Origins of the Holocaust.” What follows is a convincing case that Hitler was more influenced by Enlightenment philosophers than by orthodox Christianity. Why probe the pre-history of Nazism? Because some historians persist in maintaining the opposite–that Christianity prepared German soil for the flourishing of Nazi ideology. Keysor writes: ”In his lengthy book The Holocaust in Historical Context, Steven Katz of Boston University links biblical Christianity to the crimes of the Nazis.”
 | dsoderberg on I am a Sodomite … |
 | Why Homosexuality is… on I am a Sodomite … |
 | Tim Prussic on Father Hunger – Rev… |
 | Joffre The Giant on Those Manly, Racy Puritan… |
 | John on Fathers, We Need to Step Into… |
