Untitled

University of Edinburgh to ban the Bible in their halls.

Ruminations By The Lake: Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

The news story is here.

What they are banning is the Gideon's placing Bibles in every student's room. I think the option taken by Stirling University is better: allow "offended" religions to place their own holy books along side the Bibles. (This seems to be the practice among most hotels here in the U.S.)

I agree with Stirling's former chaplain, it's an attempt by those without faith to attack faith while appearing politically correct.

Flock Test Post

I'm playing around with a new browser called Flock. This is a test post from Flock's blog editor.

The Prostitution of the Gospel

Several days ago, I came across these links about the shortage of men in churches:

Common Grounds
OpinionJournal

It looks like Thomas Nelson publishing has taken a radical (to put it kindly) approach to attracting men, a "Biblezine" called "Align"

Click on the "See Larger Photo" and check out what they have put on the cover of their "New Testament for Men". What was it Jesus said about trying to serve God and mammon?

From Today's Random Reading

From The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence:

"...we ought to help one another by our advice, and yet more by our good examples."

In the Name of Jesus?

Found at the Reformation21 weblog:

The London Times reports that: "A Christian charity is sending a film about the Christmas story to every primary school in Britain after hearing of a young boy who asked his teacher why Mary and Joseph had named their baby after a swear word. The Breakout Trust raised £200,000 to make the 30-minute animated film, It’s a Boy. Steve Legg, head of the charity, said: “There are over 12 million children in the UK and only 756,000 of them go to church regularly."

The Power of God In Prayer

From The Necessity of Prayer by Edward Bounds:

"A dear friend of mine who was quite a lover of the chase, told me the following
story: 'Rising early one morning,' he said, 'I heard the baying of a score of
deerhounds in pursuit of their quarry. Looking away to a broad, open field in front
of me, I saw a young fawn making its way across, and giving signs, moreover, that
its race was well-nigh run. Reaching the rails of the enclosure, it leaped over and
crouched within ten feet from where I stood. A moment later two of the hounds came
over, when the fawn ran in my direction and pushed its head between my legs. I
lifted the little thing to my breast, and, swinging round and round, fought off the
dogs. I felt, just then, that all the dogs in the West could not, and should not capture
that fawn after its weakness had appealed to my strength.' So is it, when human
helplessness appeals to Almighty God. Well do I remember when the hounds of sin
were after my soul, until, at last, I ran into the arms of Almighty God."

The Shame of Biblical Illiteracy

An interesting take on how to read (not study) the Bible:

Presbyterian drinking song

Courtesy of the Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church. (Isn't "Reformed Presbyterian" redundant?)

http://www.prpc-stl.org/articles.html?cm_id=209

Trust me, you want to listen to the MP3 file.

(Someone Else's) Book Review

The Internet Monk has a review of John Piper's latest book God Is In The Gospel.

What Piper seems to be saying is this: ignore the issues of hell, eternal life, etc. The real point of being a Christian is to be with Jesus when we die.

From the review:

"This is a return to the kind of Calvinisitic evangelism that presents Christ and nothing else to the sinner; that prays for heart conversion to Christ; that preaches Christ as God's glory and not as the solutions to "felt needs." Piper's contention that coming to Christ to avoid hell is not saving faith will surely be controversial, since a vast amount of evangelical and fundamentalist evangelism is centered on Christ as the one who rescues you from the wrath to come and gives you eternal life. Piper, agrees, of course with that much of the message, but would say that if it is not clear that heaven is focused entirely on Christ, and not on golf or a family reunion, then the message is not the Gospel."

This has caused a discussion on the Monk's other site about whether or not Piper has given a definition of saving faith that no can live up to.

I haven't written anything in forever. It would be nice to blame this on my being elected as an elder at my church and teaching an adult Sunday School class as well. The truth is, I've just been lazy.

It's a good thing no one reads this blog.

Maybe what I need to do is let my students know about this place and let them nag me, or start their own blogs.