Adopted

Atheist Conviction

HT: JT

The Whole Article

I was stumbling through looking for something on CS Lewis and found this article. A couple of highlights is a description of him meeting Billy Graham:

I had the pleasure of meeting Billy Graham once. We had dinner together during his visit to Cambridge University in 1955, while he was conducing a mission to students. I thought he was a very modest and a very sensible man, and I liked him very much indeed.

He commented also how he viewed contemporary literature:

I have read very little in this field. I am not a contemporary scholar. I am not even a scholar of the past, but I am a lover of the past.

His thoughts on space travel:

I look forward with horror to contact with other inhabited planets, if there are such. We would only transport them all of our sin and our acquisitiveness ...

I love these insights into CS Lewis. It makes me want to read his books more and more. If you want to read the entire article click here.

Say What You Mean

“The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that. The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him. I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the readers will most certainly go into it.”~ CS Lewis

Old Stuff

Found these while doing some Spring Cleaning of old files on my Hard Drive.

The Most Beautiful Promise

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. ~ Rev. 21:4

Multi-Socializing

The Wall Street Journal has an article on the implications of the social networking phenomenon and how it is impacting our kids. This summer Adriane and I got to see Jesse Rice talk about his book "The Church of Facebook" and he had a lot of interesting things to say. I have not had the chance to read the book yet, but hope to over Christmas break.

I am a huge advocate for Christians understanding this new way of communicating and understanding the importance of this type of communication in balance with interpersonal communication.

HT: Justin Taylor

The Big Three

I was listening to a lecture given by my friend Jeff Louie on the Gospel and Community. In this lecture he mentions that when we think through our choices about how to handle controversial issues between culture and faith we should consider them in light of the "big three". He basically asks how would you have handled the issue of Slavery, the Rise of Hitler, and the Civil Rights Movement.

On the issue of Slavery we can read in Scripture that it was illegal, at least the form that America practiced, but would we have said anything? Or would we have said that the church should not get involved in social issues. On the issue of Hitler, would we have opposed him and taken the punishment (most likely imprisonment or death or one after the other) or would we have said the church should not get involved in politics. You get the idea.

I think today the big two that face the church is homosexuality and abortion. These two issues are so tough to look at from a cultural perspective in light of what Scripture teaches. It almost demands us to be on the other end of culturally accepted practice. I feel that abortion may be turning the tide as more people are made aware of the horrific experience an individual life experiences as it is being ripped out of mom, but people so desperately want the ability to control each aspect of their life that I do not think the issue will ever go away.

Gospel and Community is a nice phrase with profound implications if you truly are in love with the word of God.

The Rules of Youth Ministry

Read this on youth ministry at Stuff Christian's Like. Good stuff.