Post Tenebras Lux - The Carnival of the Reformation

This post is to announce that the first Carnival of the Reformation will be held November 1, 2004 here at Jollyblogger.

The Carnival is taking its name from the latin phrase "Post Tenebras Lux" - "after darkness, light." This phrase came to symbolize the reformation and it adorns the reformation wall in Geneva, which is a kind of Mt. Rushmore for the reformation. It is a wall that features sculptures of Farel, Calvin, Bèze, and Knox (hey, where's Martin Luther? Can I get an outcry from our Lutheran friends!).

This is the first of what I hope will be several carnivals. I don't want to do a weekly carnival, but hope to do one every six to eight weeks. My goal is to have the second carnival sometime around Christmas.

This carnival will be unlike some of the other blogging carnivals in that each one will have a particular theme. This first carnival will be on the theme "Sola Scriptura." Here are the guidelines for the carnival.

1. Submit a post that is either a defense, explanation, or application of the Reformed doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Each post should be in accordance with statements on Scripture in the major reformed confessions. I'll post some of the confessional statements next week in case you don't have access to them.

2. All entries must be received by Thursday, October 28 at 6:00pm. E-mail all entries to:

[email protected]

3. Provide the following info:

Name of Your Blog
URL of Your Blog
Title of Post
URL of Post
Brief Description of Post

4. This particular carnival will post on Monday, November 1. I was going to post it on Sunday, October 31, which is Reformation Day, but my experience is that Sunday is the slowest day in the blogosphere, hence I'll go for the following Monday.

For veteran carnival participants I want to point out a couple of areas of difference between this and the other carnivals. For this one, since it is theme based, any post at any time on your blog would be welcome. Don't worry about having to submit a post composed within the week before the carnival. Also, you will see that I have a three day lag between the date the posts are due and the date I post the carnival. This is basically because I don't know what kind of time commitments I will be having and want to give myself plenty of time to get it together and get it posted.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with carnivals in the blogosphere, I would suggest you check out the Christian Carnival and the Carnival of the Vanities for examples of how these things run. The best place to check out the Christian Carnival is at Patriot Paradox, run by Nick Queen. Nick has a schedule on the right side of his blog listing upcoming Christian Carnival dates. You can check out any of those. I don't keep up with the Carnival of the Vanities quite as well, but a google search will turn them up.

Basically though, everyone is welcome to submit a post per the guidelines. This is a good way to become more well known in the blogworld and possibly pick up some new readers.

I'm looking forward to this carnival. When I floated the idea a few weeks ago I got a good enough response to proceed, so I hope that all of you who showed interest will follow up and submit an entry. I do believe that our reformed tradition has much to offer in this postmodern moment and hope that many will participate.

If all goes well, as I said, I would like to host a second carnival around Christmas time with the theme of "Solus Christus." I realize that, in the standard expressions of the five sola's I'm getting out of order, but what better way to reform our commercialized Christmas season than with some reflections on the one for whom this season is named and which has become a sterling example of taking the Lord's name in vain.