June 30th, 2005 | Published in Quotes, Religion
It is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering him about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. That is the key to history.
—C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters Complete in One Volume (San Franscisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), p. 50
June 30th, 2005 | Published in Quotes, Religion
When you are arguing against [God] you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.
—C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters Complete in One Volume (San Franscisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), p. 48
June 29th, 2005 | Published in Quotes, Religion
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there was no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.
—C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters Complete in One Volume (San Franscisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), p. 39
June 27th, 2005 | Published in Books & Reading, Education, Literature, Quotes
The imaginative activity that takes place as the eyes scan the page provides both the pleasure and the intellectual value of reading.
—Veith, Gene Edward Jr. Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), p.xiii
June 25th, 2005 | Published in Books & Reading, Culture, Literature, Quotes, Religion
The habit of reading is absolutely critical today, particularly for Christians. As television turns our society into an increasingly image-dominated culture, Christians must continue to be people of the Word. When we read, we cultivate a sustained attention span, an active imagination, a capacity for logical analysis and critical thinking, and a rich inner life. Each of these qualities, which have proven themselves essential to a free people, is under assault in our TV-dominated culture. Christians, to maintain their Word-centered perspective in an image-driven world, must become readers.
—Veith, Gene Edward Jr. Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), p. xiv
June 23rd, 2005 | Published in Politics
Supreme Court OKs personal property seizures
The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. . . .
As a result, cities have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes to generate tax revenue.
For an office complex? What in the world? It almost sounds like an April Fool’s Joke. I really hope this decision is reversed.
June 23rd, 2005 | Published in Culture, Humor and Satire
The Christian Blogosphere Awards of Demerit
Witty, fun, and best of all: true! The Hugh Hewitt observation wins the show. The irony of someone writing a book about blogging and having one of the world’s worst blogs (software wise, not content wise!) begs to be mentioned.
The only thing missing was mentioning Phil Johnson’s habitual “back-patting” through his BlogSpotting! Sorry Phil, but you have to admit it is shamelessly (and needlessly) vainglorious. But then maybe that’s what blogging is really all about.
[HT: Justin Taylor]
June 22nd, 2005 | Published in Books & Reading, Culture, Essays, Religion
I seem to have developed a habit where I desire to write things that have already been written. This undoubtedly branches from my bibliographic ignorance. I could list several examples of this, but I will use only one. I have written a fairly extensive outline talking about various cultural trends and suggestions on how to avoid relapsing into a kind of “technological dark age.” While I still think such a work has eventual merit, I have found a book that accomplishes a similar goal in regards to the evangelical Christian community. It is entitled Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It.
Written 11 years ago by Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds is a work every Christian should read at least once. I am serious. It is a helpful (not to mention very concise) overview of a variety of cultural (secular and religious) trends that have impacted evangelicalism for the better and for the worse. From postmodernism to advertising to television to premillenialism to pietism, he doesn’t hold back the punches.
Have you ever wondered why modern Christians imitate and adapt culture instead of creating it? Why evangelical leaders are not “equipped intellectually to think through the complex social issues of the times and offer genuinely new and promising solutions to them” (p. 13) ? Why evangelicalism has a tendency to slide into anti-intellectualism (“a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind”)? Or falsely dichotomizing the “heart” against the “head”? This book will answer your questions.
The one drawback is that most of the book talks about the many negatives of culture but does not talk enough about ways to combat the negative influences. Because of this, I have listed several more works below that would be of interest to people who want to begin cultivating a Christian mind. Of course while the first action is to begin thinking, it does not always start until people begin reading. It’s impossible to think without knowing anything. With that in mind, my first recommendation is The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer since it gives an extremely helpful overview of good classic books to read (with summaries), including how to read them.
Fit Bodies, Fat Minds is only 152 pages. Even the slowest reader could finish it in a week if they devoted half an hour a night to it. So I plead with you, read this book and seek to develop a Christian mind for the glory of God!