2009-01-13

From JT: "ChristianColleges.com provides a list of blogs dealing with stuff related to theology, religion, ancient texts, etc." [I noticed that Triablogue isn't on there. There are vastly lesser blogs on that list]. Top 100 Theology Blogs

"News.com.au: “Australian scientists have reviewed a global pool of research into the effect of modern office design, concluding the switch to open-plan has led to lower productivity and higher worker stress.”" Open-plan offices make workers sick

The earth's magnetic field apparently effects climate change. Earth's Magnetic Field Changes Climate

Special effects put a face on the victims of abortion. http://www.virtuemedia.org/vanished.htm. HT: Vanished

Pike interacts with a commentator exploring action theory. Some points: 1) If a choice is to be libertarian, it cannot be determined in any manner at all. That is, those alternate possibilities MUST BE REAL. They cannot just be perceived, they have to be actual. And that would mean that if we rewound time’s tape, we would be unable to predict what the agent would do. 2) if an agent always makes the same choice, then this just is determinism. 3) Divine foreknowledge precludes actual possibility, since God's foreknowledge implies a determined future, as His foreknowledge must be accurate. 4) In pointing out that some libertarians are confused compatibilists, Pike observes that no LFW would say “the very idea of choice does not necessarily presuppose the ‘principle of alternative possibility’ Freedom, Determinism, and Persiflage

White points to British Muslims to show the extremism intrinsic to Islam. Disturbing Images

Piper points to what he calls "the most cynical, unsympathetic, and misleading biography I have ever read" and quotes "a magnificent paragraph about Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield." Franklin and Whitefield as Opposites

Challies reviews It's Not Fair. The author deals with the 'it's not fair' attitude: "From years of personal and counseling experience," he writes, "I know that nothing is more damaging to us spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and behaviorally than responding to the unpleasant, unwanted, and (in our judgment) undeserved attitude of life with the 'it's not fair' attitude." The author points to God's wisdom, love, sovereignty and justice as four characteristics, taken individually and together, that counter an attitude that we are somehow getting less than we deserve. Ultimately when we're angry about situations, we're angry with God. Challies calls it an eminently practical book and one that looks always to the heart, answering sin with gospel. It's Not Fair!

This blog posts a few observations from Helmut Koester on textual criticsm: "a) between 1908 - 1937 half (51) of all the articles on NT (102) in HTR dealt with textual criticism (in the same period there was nothing on intertestamental literature, or Philo, or Josephus); b) between 1938-1968 'contributions to the field of New Testament textual criticism have dwindled to a small number' (p. 315; 14 articles) (with many more on Judaism, and the Greco-Roman world); c) between 1969-2006 'the area of New Testament textual criticism has shrunk to a mere seven contributions' (mostly by E.J. Epp) (while other fields expanded: general NT; Judaism; ancient Christianity)." Helmut Koester on A Century of NT Scholarship

After the Jesus Seminar, now there is a Jesus Project (atheists instead of liberals). Bruce Chilton on the Jesus Seminar and Jesus Project

JT: Douglas Kelly's 640-page first volume of his three-volume Systematic Theology is now available: Systematic Theology, Volume 1: Grounded in Holy Scripture and Understood in Light of the Church. Among others, this is endorsed by Ligon Duncan and Michael Horton. Kelly's Systematic Theology- Volume 1 Now Available

JT links to an interview with Wright about his response to Piper, and Burk responds. JT points to a serious misrepresentation of Piper. An Interview with N.T. Wright

Turk responds to a person who asserts that "there’s a lot of tension in holding the Calvinist doctrines of limited atonement and unconditional election together with the idea that God freely offers salvation to all." Turk says, "The mystery is how this person reads the Bible and can't admit that this is not a Calvinist invention, but actually what the Bible teaches -- that God has both predestined sinful men for salvation AND makes the offer of the Gospel to everyone who will believe." The Offer

This post exhorts us to seek the true Jesus - not to be Jesus connoisseurs. "We all need the same thing.  We desperately need to journey away from our prejudicial/familial view of Jesus Christ.  We need to come back to the biblical center, where He is known in all His fullness without bias or historical blockage... Only the light of total biblical revelation is bright enough to expose the darkness of our own stagnant thinking about a Christ who is caricatured by what we find most pleasing to our own perspectives." Jesus- the New Wine Tasting!