Book, , Movie, Music, and Television Reviews

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By Dinesh D'Souza:

Here in the West, there are lots of liberal Christians. Some of them have assumed a kind of reverse mission: instead of being the church's missionaries to the world, they have become the world's missionaries to the church. They devote their moral energies to trying to make the church more democratic, to assure equal rights for women, to legitimize homosexual marriage, and so on. A small but influential segment of liberal Christianity rejects all the central doctrines of Christianity. H. Richard Hiebuhr famously summed up their credo: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."

I have met liberal Christians who are good and sincere people. But their version of Christianity is retreating, in two senses. Liberal Christians are distinguished by how much intellectual and moral ground they concede to the adversaries of Christianity: "Granted, no rational person today can believe in miracles, but..." "True, the Old Testament God seems a mighty vengeful fellow, but..." "Admittedly religion is responsible for most of the conflict and oppression in history, but..."

This yes-but Christianity in full intellectual withdrawal, and it is also becoming less relevant. * * *

Unfortunately, the central themes of some of the liberal churches have become indistinguishable from those of the American Civil Liberties Union, the national Organization for Women, and the homosexual rights movement. Why listen to Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong drone on when you can get the same message and much more interesting visuals at San Francisco's gay pride parade?

This is quote I try to keep on hand.

What really struck me was the "Christ's missionary to the world" vs. "the world's missionary to the church."

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"The Case for Christmas" by Lee Strobel.

The best part of the books were

1) the interview with the historian that made the case for an early writing of the Gospels, and the book of Acts and

2) the interview with the Jewish man who set out to read the Old Testament, looking for prophesies of the Messiah, and found them fulfilled in the Jesus of the New Testament.

Other than that, a lot of the book was telling Christians what they already know.  It's a good book to know and have, because it lays "what we believe and why" out so clearly.

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★★★★★★I've come to the conclusion that every conservative should know Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" inside out.  And be ready to name the tactics (whether liberals know they're using them or not) when confronted with them.

"Rules for Radical Conservatives" takes those rules, turns them around and gives conservatives hope for taking our country back from the liberal elite (leadership) who want to wreck it.

It's written from the viewpoint of a conservative, what the rules are and why they will work.

Know them, use them.

It's one that will stay on the front page of the kindle app.

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Re-reading...

The first part of the book is reviewing the opposing doctrines. I grew up in a church that taught pre-trip rapture (and was in that vein until I "reformed") but if the teaching was "dispensational" I don't remember it.

I don't like learning about doctrines from the opposing view, but when I googled and located teaching from dispensationalist, it sounded even stranger than when Riddlebarger explained it.

So I'll just go with that for now.

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I'm reading "50 People Every Christian Should Know" by Warren Wiersbe.  The first person is Katherine von Bora - Martin Luther's wife.

She had the "supporting role," yet was a leader as well.  She ran the household and the pet names that Luther had for her reflected that.

If it were not for her support, including the welcoming table that she prepared, Luther's "Table Talk" might not have been written...it was around her table that those talks took place.

Reading this short history, I was encouraged...someday, perhaps...I'll have such a supporting role.

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★★★★★★"Forgotten God" by Francis Chan

This is a pretty basic book and Chan tells that right up front.  It is not so much that we don't know about the Holy Spirit, it's more like...we don't acknowledge Him - we don't live like His presence is a reality in our lives.

And that is the message of this book

Many times we are discouraged from being too passionate, or too giving, or too...whatever.  Do not let others discourage us from following the leading of the Spirit.

As I was finishing the book; reading the last few pages, this struck me

Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness...

Did you catch that?  I never have.

Fruit...singular.  One Spirit, one fruit, many flavors.

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★★★★★★"Everybody Here Spoke Sign Language" by Nora Ellen Groce

It was a good book, but a little "text-bookish" - a lot of research went into it and the author talked to the last living people who knew some of the deaf people on Martha's Vineyard.

Way back when...when Martha's Vineyard was first settled by people from England, they brought with them a recessive gene for deafness.  At one point, the deaf population (percentage wise) was several times the rate of deafness in the population of the rest of the country.

The deaf on Martha's Vineyard weren't considered "handicapped" - they just...were.  Groce tells several stories of interviewing people and asking about a certain person.  The interviewee would say, "oh!  they owned a boat and they were really good fishermen" and it was only when specifically asked did the person remember, "well, yes.  Come to think of it, they were deaf!"

It seems that nearly every family had at least one child and every learned sign language, both hearing and deaf.   For a couple of centuries, deafness was about as much of a handicap on the island as being left-handed.  It wasn't.

Today, deaf people tend to marry deaf people - that wasn't the way it was on Martha's Vineyard.  It was only when "deaf schools" started to be opened on the mainland and people in general became more mobile, that the deaf population on the island started to dwindle.  As people moved off island and to the island, the gene pool expanded.

It was only in the mid-20th century that the person with this hereditary deafness died - from the 1600's until the 1900's, deafness was a part of every day life - I liked reading that.

What we see as an impairment - wasn't.  Today, deaf people are sometimes treated as though, because they cannot here, they cannot understand.  There...and then, it was the off-islanders who were at a disadvantage, because they didn't understand some of what was being said in sign.

It was the Martha's Vineyard sign language that became the basis for ASL.

If you have an interest in deafness or sign language...or if you just want the encouragement of reading about an "impairment" wasn't, this is a good book to read.

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A Biblical Case for an Old Earth by David Snoke

Previous chapters here.

Chapter 2.

One of the complaints about the book in the Amazon reviews is that the book is supposed to be about the Biblical case, yet he starts with the scientific case.

The first sentence of this chapter says,

My goal is to build a biblical case, not primarily a scientific one, but I want to first review some of the scientific facts so that we can see the stakes involved.

This seems fair to me.  How can we build a Biblical case for an old earth unless we know what "old earth" entails?

The first topic is measuring the age of the universe by the distance of the stars

  • First, one could argue that the above (read the book) measurement process is wrong, and that actually the stars are much nearer.
  • Second, one could argue that the speed of light used to be much faster
  • Third, one could argue that the light we see did not actually come from stars, but was created "en route.

The problem with the first argument is that (if the universe is no more than 10,000 years old, then all of the stars would have to be within 10,000 light years of the view point (earth).  There are billions of stars and to have them all within 20,000 light years of each other (with earth at the center) would create gravitational chaos.

The second argument (the slowing down of the speed of light) is more interesting...but...

One of the books I'm reading now is "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil. On page 140 (a wild paraphrase) he writes that two physicists from Los Alamos Laboratory have discovered the remains on a natural nuclear reactor in West Africa that had a "melt down" 2 billion years ago.  There is a "constant particle" called an "alpha particle" that is inversely related to the speed of light and by examining isotopes connected with these particles, the slowing of the alphas implies that the speed of light has INCREASED. This is a minuscule change - 4.5 parts per 10 to the 38th power (no clue how to do exponents in wordpress).

The third argument (that light was created en route) is - according to Snoke - the most viable of the three.  But if we work under the assumption that things are as they appear, then the starts appear to be very far away.

This "apparent age" theory eliminates any possibility of a scientific discussion about the age of the world.

That's it for the "speed of light changing" and there's more in chapter 1...but I wanted to get this posted today... 

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Preface and Chapter 1

I'll link to this up as I add chapters - it's a good book that gives a different side to the "evolution vs. 6-day creation" debate.

"Biblical Case For an Old Earth" by David Snokes (if you buy through this link, I get a credit - hint, hint)

In the preface,

Snokes introduces the debate in a "orthodox vs liberalism" sort of way and describes how "old earthers" are often portrayed by  those who believe that the earth is (at most) 20,000 years old.

Snokes maintains that a person can be a theological conservative and accept a Biblical case for an old earth.

Chapter 1, "Starting Assumptions"

Snokes starts by telling readers that if he had not studied science, he would not have come to an old earth conclusion...tells us that his interpretation is a "possible" interpretation, not an "obvious" one.  He recognizes that his view may not be popular, and points out that:

It is illegitimate to change our view of the Bible because we want a more popular interpretation.

and then

He poses the question about whether or not it's okay to ever allow experience, history, or science affect or alter our understanding of the interpretation of Scripture.

Examples he used were Galileo...do we allow our understanding of science to affect our interpretation of Psalm 93:1?

Does history tell us that "king" in Daniel 5:1 refers to a viceroy, a "lesser king", and not the foremost ruler of an entire country?  Would we have that understanding, if we didn't have history?

There is a legitimacy to allowing experience to affect our interpretation...that does NOT mean that we should change our interpretation to bow to the prevailing views of culture in order to be with the "in crowd."  It also does not mean that we need to get onto the "slippery slope" and we can avoid that by clearly laying out the boundaries - what is negotiable and what is not.

we would do well to remember that science was founded by Christians who insisted that God is not a great deceiver, that the natural world is ordered by a good God, and that we must reject superstition and hearsay; moreover, that we must subject all truth claims to rigorous examination, even claims of honored church leaders from generations past...

Question: is it legitimate to allow your experience with purported miracle workers to affect the way you interpret passages like Ephesians 4:11 AND 2 Cor. 12:12 that seem to promise signs and wonders?

My answer...maybe not, but it is certainly wise to allow Scripture to judge whether or not a miracle worker is merely "purported."

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Thoughts on "Forgotten God" (Francis Chan), Chapter 2 - "What Are You Afraid Of?"

There are a lot of thoughts that are rather meaningful right now.

What AM I afraid of?

  • rejection
  • loneliness
  • deeper things that I don't need to go into here.

What I know is that a life of following Christ requires me to relinquish my fears.  Pursue truth and...be prepared to be wrong.

Chan asks, What if God doesn't "come through?"  Do we ask for less, believe less, trust less - because we're "covering" for God, just in case He doesn't come through if we ask for something bigger?

Do I ask for a stone, because I don't trust Him to provide bread?

Do I ask, trusting, for what Christ promised that the Father would deliver - the gift of the Holy Spirit?  What would that gift look like, and am I willing to have it look like THAT? (whatever "that" might look like?)

And am I willing to take a closer look at the difference between what God has promised vs. what I want to be true?

DO I WANT THIS?

Giving up control?  Trusting the Holy Spirit to mold me, stripping away selfishness, fear, distrust?

Do I want this?

How am I willing to respond (change) if my beliefs about the Holy Spirit change?  Do I desire truth over acceptance?

How do I (not so much "if I") allow the perceptions of others to affect my relationship with Christ?  How do I allow them to affect how I view the Holy Spirit?