Some blogs worth reading this week . . .
My good friend Terry has a post called Withdrawing from Society: Pushed Back into Irrelevance where he compares the world's tactics in marginalizing Christian influence to a military tactic of channeling, which is basically seems to be a defensive maneuver which channels the enemy into a weakened and exposed position.
An example of this is seen in this quote from Marvin Olasky's column Twist and Shout:
"Secular liberals who don't believe in right vs. wrong believe instead in smart vs. stupid, so rather than discuss values they prate about brains and look for opportunities to debase rather than debate."
(Hat tip to Marla Swoffer - glad to see you are blogging every now and then while taking care of the baby Marla).
Which is illustrated in Bill Maher's comments on Scarborough County wherein he said:
We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. If you look at it logically, it's something that was drilled into your head when you were a small child. It certainly was drilled into mine at that age. And you really can't be responsible when you are a kid for what adults put into your head.
OK Bill, so what about what you are putting in your kids heads? Oh brother!! Does he really believe what he is saying? Religion does all this horrible stuff like justifying crazies and causing people to fly planes into buildings. And what does irreligion produce? Think French Revolution and 20th century communism. Ah well, looks like Olasky was being prophetic when he made his comments.
It's Puritan Month at Rebecca Writes and I am glad of it. She is featuring short vignettes and bios from the Puritan era and I would encourage you to check it out. Contrary to popular opinion, the Puritans were not the somber killjoys they are made out to be. They were a lively, exciting group of people. But they took their faith seriously and integrated into every area of life and their examples are ones we could stand to emulate.
Something to think about from The Pen and The Sword . . .
Reality check: The fastest growing faiths on the American continent are Islam, Mormonism, and Catholicism. Islam is growing by promoting a disciplined lifestyle and a sense of religious identity. Mormonism is growing with their own two-wheeled propogation of their message...young, handsome, clean-cut men on bikes going door to door and talking with people. Catholicism is growing because a huge number of Baptists and other thinking believers are getting increasingly disgusted with the nonsense that masquerades as authentic Christian witness.
Hmm . . . there's nothing very seeker sensitive or even culturally sensitive about the three groups he mentions, they apparently aren't accomodating their message and methods to the culture nor are they trying to redefine or reframe their messages for a "postmodern" generation (at least as far as I know). So tell me again why I need to re-think and repackage my faith to win "today's generation."
Favorite lines of the week from bloggers . . .
In truth, there were many stories of Ben’s unsettling combination of raw brute force and ill temper, including his effort to feed a cue ball to an itinerant pool hall hustler and his redecoration of more than a few local bars when too much caffeine interacted with too much Budweiser. But this isn’t one of those stories. This is about how Ben got saved by a recalcitrant stripper and her bat-wielding boyfriend.
From the short story Saved by Bill Wallo.
And . . .
Discoshaman, I have seen the future. And it is crap. Pure crap. Unadulterated, unmitigated, unembarassed, boldly and brazenly crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. More crap.
A comment on Le Sabot Post Moderne regarding what is coming down the pipeline in Christian media.
Best response to Bill Maher's unfounded assertion about Christianity as a faith that inhibits thought comes from Amanda Witt over at Wittingshire.
She writes:
"Yup. Tolkien never thought worth a flip; nor did Dante, Milton, Donne, C.S.Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Thomas Aquinas, Albert Schweitzer, Dostoyevsky, Victor Hugo, Solzhenitsyn, Blaise Pascal, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy, Galileo, Copernicus, Flannery O'Connor, Madelaine L'Engle, Sir Isaac Newton ..."
Posted by: Patrick O'Hannigan | February 19, 2005 at 12:35 AM