I'm not in love with Jesus, either.

Another reason to read Tim Challies' blog: he does a good job of linking to other useful stuff. Case in point- Max Stackhouse addresses the vocabulary of love here.

Heaven is real; we're not sure about Don Piper

If you don't know about Tim Challies, you should. He can save you a lot of time. Tim reads. A lot. And he writes good book reviews. He has an opinion on a pop best-seller: Heaven is real. In short, his opinion is: " Too long, too boring, too man-centered and too much like an infomercial, this book is a near-complete waste of time. Avoid it." You can read the entire review here.

Disturbing truth

It's been awhile since I have recommended Chuck Colson's Breakpoint Commentary. Today's is especially important. Read it here. (Click on Breakpoint Commentaries and choose Sept. 18) I just have it e-mailed to me so that I don't have to remember to go get it.

Artrageous clip art

Well, it came again on Wednesday, just like it always does the middle of September. No, it wasn't the new phone book, or an unsolicited five pound zucchini. I didn't ask for it; I don't want it; but it comes anyway. "It" is the ChurchArtWorks catalog, featuring Artrageous Clip Art-- "INSANE. WACKY. BIZARRE. PERFECT FOR YOUTH MINISTRY! 100 hip images, rendered in an edgy style that promises to grab the eyeballs of every kid in the youth group."
Okay. Then what? What then? How do you transition from the dude with his head, well, impossibly between his legs, or the slanty-eyed pumpkin vomiting it's own guts, to the blessedness of the poor in spirit or Jesus the Good Shepherd? And can someone please tell me when "edginess" became a virtue? Or am I simply a COWD ?(Cranky old white dude) And when will beauty make it back on the radar screen of things valued by the Church? And when will we tire of doing ministry the ways the world does business?

Outlandish Proverb of the Week #682

"One father is better than a hundred schoolteachers."
George Herbert in the 1630s

Stone and ice

"I don't understand you, Grandma."
"In that case, let me say one more thing you won't understand. It is another of my mother's sayings, and it is something we can both ponder. 'What you learn in childhood is carved on stone; what you learn in old age is carved on ice.'"
"Can we go home now, Grandma?"
"Of course, darling."
The Road From Home. David Kherdian, p.23

It's a doggone shame

On a recent vacation on Willapa Harbor, we wandered the outdoor market along the wharf, enjoying the luxury of not needing to buy anything. The thing that struck us was the, to us, unusual number of expensive dogs towing people around. I knew at the time this must mean something, this surge in people raising dogs rather than kids; it took until today, reading Anthony Esolen, to figure it out.

An apologetic inroad?

Apparently, bloggers are required today to comment on 9/11.
Perhaps one of the many redemptive things that God can bring out of this great evil is an analogy that goes like this: for most people living today, history, in particular particular events, have no meaning. And yet, as we are often reminded, and grudgingly acknowledge, September 11 changed all of our lives. Those events have meaning. That cluster of events has impacted every one of us in countless ways, ways we know and ways we don't. We can deny the effects; we can, if we choose, even deny the events (9/11 never happened?) The impacts remain. The truth of 9/11 remains.
Now magnify the significance of the event exponentially and call it the Incarnation-Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection. Ignore it if you can; even deny it if you will. But that event has changed your life, one way or the other, and will continue to do so forever, regardless of how you feel about it. The truth of Jesus remains.