Culture

On September 30, England’s Guardian reported that Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy was second on the American Library Association’s most banned book list.

The list ranks the top 10 books and authors which are successfully banned from schools or frequently challenge, usually by parents concerned about what their children read or by religious groups, such as the Catholic League.

Pullman has come under fire for his atheist views and in particular for one scene in his final book where his protagonists kill a character called “God.”

The first of Pullman’s books was made into a movie, “The Golden Compass,” in 2007 starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig of “James Bond” fame.

ALA’s rankings came in the middle of the annual “Banned Books Week,” where libraries across the country celebrate freedom of speech.

In its Thursday editorial, the New York Times laid out a case for a universal health care plan to pay for abortions, regardless of whether the abortion would save the pregnant woman’s life.

The Times, often criticized by the Right for having a Liberal bias, said that, “Democrats who support the compromise must find a way to prevent it from being used later to go after other tax subsidies and thus further deny Americans’ rights to make their own health-care decisions.”

This editorial is interesting in two ways.  First, abortion most of the time is not a medical procedure per quo. Pregnancy is not a disease or an injury or something necessitating an operation, such as a facial reconstructive operation for a burn victim. It is a choice the woman makes to end a pregnancy than in most cases is not life-threatening or a “condition.” It’s the creation of life.

The diction the Times uses in calling it a health-care decision makes it seem like going in to a doctor to treat a problem with your health.

Second, in a roundabout way, this column is a little bit conservative. While government-funded health care expands the role of the feds, government denying abortion is too liberal for Liberals. It’s a private decision that government should not intervene in.

But if they expect the public to fund health care, for the government to ensure that people get health care, than that same government has the right to affirm or to deny what its nation-wide insurance plan covers. Abortion is not health care and government is not obligated to kill babies for the sake of convenience.

The purpose of medicine is to save lives, not terminate them.

“I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my strength in the dust.  My face has grown red with weeping and the shadow of death covers my eyes, although my hands are free from violence and my prayer is pure.” -Job 16:15-17

Katrina was God’s punishment for sin.  So are the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and the attacks of 9/11.

These were the claims of several religious conservatives and fundamentalists during some of our nation’s greatest tragedies.  , Pat Robertson, members of the Westboro Baptist Church and many others made headlines for their controversial statements about suffering in America.  Perhaps the most infuriating were Falwell’s comments after 9/11, where he blamed the ACLU, People for the American Way, gays, lesbians, abortionists and those who are their allies for the terrorist attacks on America.

After 9/11, Falwell and Robertson were essentially forced to recant because of the moral outrage against their words.  The outrage was not over who they were criticizing but over the claim that God hates individuals or that He causes suffering.  As R.C. Sproul observed, “We believe in a God that is infinitely capable of blessing people but incapable of cursing them.” Read the rest of this entry »

From around the Internet, here are a few quick hitters to check out:

1. James Thayer pointed me to this article about a man who went from inmate to evangelist in South Carolina.
2. C.J. Mahaney explains the benefit of having a tone-deaf pastor lead worship.
3. Two more good things from Al Mohler. The first is at the SBTS website, a panel discussion on N.T. Wright and the doctrine of justification.  The second is on his blog, an post titled “Why Moralism Is Not the Gospel.”
4. Appropriate for this blog: Mike Plewniak asks if technology is beneficial to Christians.  An oldie, but a goodie.
5. Purgatorio blog does not just joke but asks a serious question about this church with a sign outside saying “Islam is of the Devil.”
6. Came up in Google search for Christianity: a girl who converted from Islam to Christianity flees home, then seeks mediation after her family threatens to kill her
7. Forbes.com listed the top 10 megachurches in the U.S.

Statistically, no.  But as Al Mohler writes in a post, this nation’s pluralism looks more like Hinduism than Christianity.

“Without doubt, Americans have been growing more and more accepting of plural and relative understandings of truth,” Mohler writes. ” A tragically large number of those who identify as Christians have been drinking from the same wells of thought (as Hindus).”

His post draws most of its material from Lisa Miller’s article in Newsweek.

This was a great message from the 2006 Desiring God conference “The Supremacy of Christ in a Post-Modern World.” Keller specifically focuses on how to evangelize and gives “more of a lecture than a sermon” in his own words.  Relevant from anyone who wishes to preach the gospel in our modern culture.

I just stumbled upon this video of Rachel Barkey, a 37-year-old wife and mother of two who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Two months ago Rachel shared her story and her trust in God with over 600 women. I was deeply moved and affected by her story and her passion to know God. Please take the time to watch or listen and learn to know what she knows.

She has posted a book list and written letters to friends and family on her website: http://deathisnotdying.com/

When was the last time you took time to examine the impact of media in your life?  Chances are that today you have either read multiple blogs, watched a news program, plugged in an iPod, watched YouTube, turned on the television, watched a movie, played a CD, gotten on to Facebook or Twittered.  In fact, the chances are only slightly smaller that at this point you have spent about half of your day consuming some form of media.  If you haven’t, welcome to American culture.

Over the last century, media technology has changed American technology almost as much as the Industrial Revolution and the two World Wars. Whereas in 1909, the first big radio shows hadn’t been dreamed of yet, in 2009, college students can access information from anywhere they choose in the world. Blogs have turned ordinary lives into events put into the public domain (and have allowed sites like B2C to exist).  ITunes has taken the power of radio stations and placed it into the hands of the customer, where you can have your own radio station via podcast or putting songs on shuffle. Even cable television, a part of our culture for over a quarter-century, still produces shows by the wayside.  We live in a media-saturated world.

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The NIV has come out with a new version: Today’s New International Version Bible.  The creators say , “Remaining unswervingly faithful to the original ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic biblical texts, the TNIV speaks to today’s world in today’s words.” One of the most visible translation differences is the removal of the generic masculine nouns and pronouns. This has many scholars asking if the change is really necessary.

Read the article Barack Obama and the TNIV, at Desiring God, which comments on the changes.  It has some sample translation differences that may be interesting.

Here is another article from CBMW titled Are the Criticisms of the TNIV Bible Really Justified?  (This one is by Wayne Grudem. It’s sure to be a good read, but long.)

What do you think: Is it harmful to the integrity of Scripture to change these general masculine pronouns? Is it needed for our generation? Do you think this is just an attempt to make the Bible politically correct?

For some reason, the talk on campus ministries is always courtship and dating. Sometimes it can seem like the only conversation alongside whatever Allison is reading in Romans, Justin Day’s latest Manspeak article and how Emergent church leaders never follow Scripture. Having been around and in Volunteers for Christ for over 16 months, this constant talk of relationships brings me joy, through laughter and through thanksgiving. I laugh at the fact that something so small can linger in the mind for hours at a time. I give thanks because without Christ, the people in these talks would have no reason to discuss how they should relate with the opposite sex. They would date at the will of their emotions.

It was not until college that I knew so many people in relationships, so many people wanting relationships and so many young married couples. For awhile, I knew my local church to be good at only two things: doctrine and weddings. Thankfully, I know my church much better now. But even so, this talk of weddings got me thinking about the most often quoted passage at weddings: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

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