Some Jolly Good Links

Ahhh, so many good blog posts out there, so little time to comment on them.  As I read through blog posts through the week I'll open the up in new tabs in my Flock Browser, meaning to come back to them and comment on them with a post of my own.  There's a problem though - right now in my browser I have 18 tabs open - that's right 18.  It's terrible, there's gotta be a 12 step group for people like me somewhere.  Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that I've got another saved session with about 12 tabs.  I'll never write that many posts.  Guess I'm going to have to try to start imitating Joe Carter with his 33 Things posts, but I don't want to be compared with Joe - my ego is fragile enough as it is.

But let's see if I can link a bunch of stuff here, clear out some tabs and then I'll go see my counselor.

1.  C. S. Lewis on Paganism and Christianity - from Peter Chattaway - maybe the rise of neo-paganism in America is actually a good thing, it's a step closer to Christianity than secularism.

To quote what Lewis wrote in 'Is Theism Important?', from God in the Dock:

When grave persons express their fear that England is relapsing into Paganism, I am tempted to reply,  'Would that she were.' For I do not think it at all likely that we shall ever see Parliament opened by the slaughtering of a garlanded white bull in the House of Lords or Cabinet Ministers leaving sandwiches in Hyde Park as an offering for the Dryads. If such a state of affairs came about, then the Christian apologist would have something to work on. For a Pagan, as history shows, is a man eminently convertible to Christianity. He is essentially the pre-Christian, or sub-Christian, religious man. The post-Christian man of our day differs from him as much as a divorcée differs from a virgin. The Christian and the Pagan have much more in common with one another than either has with the writers of the New Statesman; and those writers would of course agree with me.

2. In the same vein, check out this terrific account from John F. Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry of a Buddhist in search of grace, whose Buddhism led him to Christianity.  It's in the last couple of paragraphs of the post.

3. FWIW - by linking to those first two posts I don't in any way mean to devalue the importance of apologetics nor to underestimate the depth of error in paganism and false religion.  I only mean to say that paganism and false religion aren't the big hairy, scary monsters we sometimes think they are.

4. Florida minister receives death threats for removing American and Christian flags from sanctuary. (HT - Bene Diction).  Egads, this happened in Deland, FL., which is about 2 hours south of where I grew up.  Lots of my Baptist friends went to Stetson University, which is in Deland and my wife's grandmother lived in a town just outside of there.  So, these are kinda my people down there and I am wondering just how many people in Deland have truly lost their minds.  Here's the rationale from the church's pastor, Sean Allen:

"Sean was of the belief that because we are a church, we are a people of Christ, we should be focusing on the cross of Christ," Long said. "So he removed the flags from the sanctuary."

Sounds like sound reasoning to me.  In all fairness, the news article says that the threats may not necessarily be coming from church members, but one does have to ask who would have enough vested interest in this matter to do such a thing.  As for me, I am wondering if the folks in Deland are drinking the same water as the people in nearby Cassadaga, and maybe some weird chemical reaction is driving people insane.

5.  Michael Patton shares the sad story of a Christian walkaway.  He lays the cause of this at the feet of what I would call Christian anti-intellectualism and poor theological education. I agree with him, but think it's bigger than that.  In his Reason for God tour Tim Keller is pointing out that Christian belief is founded on three things - which I summarized here by saying that Christian belief is:

• Socially conditioned - it must fit with a group to which you belong.   
• Intellectually conditioned - it must make sense to you. 
• Personally conditioned - it must have an impact, an effect, on your life.

This isn't to detract at all from what Michael Patton wrote, and I would bet he agrees.  It's just worth pointing out that walkaways walk away for a combination of reasons, including but not limited to intellectual reasons.

6. The PCA can't seem to function without a major quarrel always going on - the big one for this summer's General Assembly in Dallas is shaping up to be a dispute about the legitimacy of female deacons.  It seems that a few presbyteries are asking the General Assembly to form a study committee on the issue, and battle lines are being drawn.  Here's a website with enough links to keep you busy for weeks on this matter.  I don't want to get into the thick of it yet since I haven't engaged the matter thoroughly, but if I may tip my hat toward a little to where I am leaning in the matter I'll just say I found it intriguing that noted complementarian and renowned NT scholar Andreas Kostenberger believes that the Scriptures allow for female deacons.

7. DP Cassidy looks at several paradigms for understanding the divisions in the PCA and offers his own assessment of these divisions by dividing things up into the following categories:

• Historic Catholics
• Neo-Puritans
• Southern Tradionalists
• Evangelical Post-Moderns

He says (rather ominously):

Running throughout the PCA are fault lines around these theological and ecclesiastical tectonic plates. They await the one issue that will unleash the kind of energy that causes a massive shift, with the plates moving away from one another, causing a new alignment to occur. That issue is now on the horizon, and the low rumblings from deep beneath the surface can be heard as that issue moves closer to consideration. That issue is the role of women in the Church.

8.  Andrew Sandlin doesn't address the PCA particularly but he offers his own taxonomy of division in the larger reformed camp as being between the TRs (Truly Reformed), BRs (Barely Reformed) and CRs (Catholic Reformed).  He argues for the catholic reformed position, which is not to be confused with roman catholicism.

9.  With all of this talk of division, let's not fail to emphasize that there are two areas that all PCA'ers and Reformed people agree on.  First, there are big problems in the Reformed and PCA communities, and secondly, it's the other guy's fault.

10.  In the "I haven't read it but it looks interesting and someday I probably will read it and think you might also be interested," category here's a link to an article by Alvin Plantinga in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on science and religion.  The reason this caught my eye is that I just listened to a Veritas Forum podcast called "What Does it Mean to Be Human?"  This was a panel discussion at UC-Fresno a few years ago.  In the course of conversation, Garrett Deweese, a conservative Christian recommended the article, and when he did, Richard Gale, who represented the humanist position, seconded this recommendation highly.

11. Are you an intovert?  C'mon, don't be shy, you can admit it.  I have stumbled across several posts lately dealing with introverts in the Christian church. 

Anthony Bradley suggests that introverts may be the sugar in the missional church's gas tank.  As one who tends toward introversion, all I have to say about that is . . . Ouch!

I know I am an introvert because I read this thing on the Top Ten Ways to Market to Introverts.  Look, if there's a personality or gift test out there, I've taken it.  But I have never been pegged by any personality discernment device like I was pegged by this thing.  I'm going to have show that to my wife the extrovert.  It won't make me any easier to live with but maybe it will help her see that I'm not unique.

I found that thing on marketing to introverts from The Introverted Church, a blog which is subtitled "Conversation starters from an introverted pastor writing a book for introverts in the church." 

Hmmm, methinks me will have to follow up on this whole introversion thing, especially since my friend Anthony has kicked this matter up several notches in terms of importance, and I may be the poster child for gumming up the works for missional ministry in the church.

12.  Michael Hyatt from Thomas Nelson likes Twitter and recommends it to you.  This is one of the things I love about Michael Hyatt - he's one of the few major Christian leaders in the conservative community who doesn't get all apocalyptic about technology.  Granted, I understand that technology can become an idol and technologies aren't morally neutral.  I stop by Doug Groothius's blog to be reminded of this from time to time. But I like Mike - Christians need to be showing how to use technology properly and guiding discussions on their proper use, not just speaking apocalyptically about it. 

Here's Mike's 12 Reasons to Use Twitter - go to his blog for an explanation of each.

1. It will enable you to experience social networking first-hand.
2. It will make you a better writer.
3. It will help you stay connected to people you care about.
4. It will help you see a new side of your friends.
5. It will introduce you to new friends.
6. It is faster than text-messaging.
7. It will make you think about your life.
8. It will help you keep up with what people are talking about.
9. It can create traffic for your blog or Website.
10. It requires a very small investment.
11. It can help build your personal “brand.”
12. It is fun! Twitter is just plain entertaining.

13. And for those of us who can't get enough of Tim Keller, here he is at the Veritas Forum at UC-Berkeley talking about belief in an age of skepticism:

Oh, and for those of you who are worried about my open tab obsession - once I close this tab I'll only have three left open.