Early January Roundup

Since I've been absent from blogging for awhile, here is a roundup of some notable articles, etc.:


1. Devin Brown, an English prof at Asbury College, gives his wish list for the new Prince Caspian movie. I think he has some great points about the storyline and Aslan, and how the movie needs to retain certain elements to really capture the message of the books.


2. CT has another article about a faculty member at Iowa State denied tenure for his research on intelligent design. It's amazing to me how many people think intelligent design is creationism. ID is a valid scientific approach to understanding our origins, based upon the observation that certain processes are irreducibly complex. In other words, you can't demonstrate that they can exist by the process of time and random mutation. It doesn't matter how much time you allow, some things are so complex they have to be designed all at once, not by gradual additions. As far as I know, no one has been able to demonstrate (through experimentation or the fossil record) that random mutations and time can lead to the development of a new species.


3. If you have any interest in the emergent church stuff, the guys at Pyromaniacs have a really interesting video posted about Solomon's Porch, Doug Pagitt's group. The folks at Stand to Reason did a critique of Brian McClaren's fall article in Leadership. Well done. There is also a new book coming out by a friend who went to Hope about the Emergent movement (a critique). You can check out the website or look at a preview by Justin Taylor.


4. The gender blog at CBMW has a great commentary on the dangers of a "gender-neutral" society. Apparently the homeless shelters of NYC are going gender-neutral and it raises some problems for ensuring the safety of women and children. Any guy who claims to be a woman can sleep in the same room and use the same bathroom facilities as the homeless women and kids staying there. You don't even need a Bible to know that something is wrong with that! While we're on the subject, CBMW had another great little article a few days ago on a new strategy for normalizing homosexual marriage through divorce. It's worth reading.


5. Here are a few reading lists for you from various blogs. The staff at Desiring God gives us their picks for the year. And rather than re-list all the great lists of books for 2007, I'll give an HT to Jason Button at Theosource for his wonderful compilation of booklists for the year. And another HT to Justin Taylor for pointing out this list of great biographies.


6. For any pastors out there, Justin Buzzard made his premartial counseling questionaire available recently, and it is excellent (very thorough).


7. Here are some more books that I think I want. But I probably need to let these desires stew a bit. I have quite a few books to read right now.

A review of the Concise Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Religion.

A preview of Tom Schreiner's New Testament Theology.


8. Tim Challies does a great post on the differences between the way men and women think about gifts. All I can say is that this really hits home. My wife, for some odd reason, LOVES those smelly soaps and lotions. To be fair, she does actually use them, but we do have quite a few sitting in the closet right now. I found Challies thoughts quite humorous :).

9. An EXCELLENT article by Mark Dever on what evangelism ISN'T. This is a great reminder to all of us that nothing can replace the proclamation of the gospel as the fundamental definition of "evangelism."

10. An finally, a little dose of theology from Sam Storms. The question: "Could Jesus have sinned?" Storms does a great job answering that question.

Sorry for the huge list, but it's been almost a month!