Changes in the IM Podcast + New Year’s greetings. (Sorry for the bad mix at the end. I’m still learning how to use new software.)

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Podcast 31 Answering some listener mail. Very good questions on Creationism and Christian Morality.

The podcast website is Coffee Cup Apologetics.

All the episodes of Coffee Cup Apologetics are now on iTunes. Go to iTunes and search for “Apologetics.”

LINK: Why I’m Not A Young Earth Creationist.

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I don’t know much about Sydney Anglicans, so I’m not in any position to say anything about the truthfulness of this interesting comment found on the Light of the World, A City on a Hill website. What I will say, however, is that the commenter is a bright fellow saying some very perceptive things about evangelicals these days. If you hear some echoes of Paul Metzger’s Consuming Jesus in those comments, then I’ll say “amen.”

It raises this question for me: When will evangelicals be ready to engage in a critique of their own movement? When will evangelicals be able to hear the truth about themselves and move forward in new directions as a result?

Is there a direction for evangelicals beyond going down the street, starting a new church with a new pastor and new gimmicks, then claiming that they have reinvented the “true” church yet again? [Continue reading]

I preached this message- or a version of it- this morning at a church nearby.

“What Now?”
A Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas, December 30, 2007
First Presbyterian Church, London, Kentucky
Michael Spencer, preacher

Scripture: Matthew 2:12-19, John 1:1-18

As our students were preparing to leave school the Friday before Christmas, we had a power outage. There’s nothing like having a school full of students ready to burst the bonds of their educational incarceration in three hours being stuck in cold, dark classrooms without a working DVD player.

We survived, and I found myself thinking about what it would be like if there were a serious, nationwide loss of power. (My friend John Jaspersen is here today, and he just endured 12 days without electricity in Oklahoma!) What if we were thrown back into the world of our parents and grandparents when they were children, at least those that lived here in the mountains? Can we even begin to imagine how much each of our lives would change without the simple presence of electricity for lights, heat, appliances and entertainment? [Continue reading]

How about some 2008 Predictions?

1. Barak Obama will defeat Mitt Romney for President and evangelicals who refused to vote for Romney will be blamed. The GOP’s conservative coalition will fragment significantly as a result. Democrats will accuse anyone who refuses to vote for Obama of being some kind of racist. Frightening racial incidents related to the campaign will raise fears of assassination. [Continue reading]

Get out the ginger ale and order pizza. It’s time for the coveted Internet Monk “Favorite Blogs of the Year” list.

This year’s list majors on personal blogs by writers you need to be reading. These are bloggers I enjoy, look forward to and respect. They put together blogs that demonstrate what blogging can be when done well. Some you know; some you don’t.

Many big dog bloggers spend half their time lecturing us all on how to blog in a way that’s consistent with their view of Christian witness. These bloggers spend their time producing thoughtful, helpful, excellent writing. I don’t agree with any of them all the time, but I’m always glad I invested my time in reading their work.

So without further introduction, my Top Ten favorite blogs this year. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: One of the reasons we go down this road every year is to laugh a bit and tell one another it’s OK. (Those of us in the evangelical wilderness need this. The rest of you talk amongst yourselves.) But we also do something else, which for a few is always difficult: we give ourselves permission to look at what’s just awful and to say so. We look at the eliminating of tradition in favor of innovation and we count the cost to our children and our faith. fundamentally, that’s a healthy exercise. But it might require a bit ‘o humor on your part.

It’s time for an Internet Monk tradition: the open thread where you, the reader, can share with us the stories of your experiences at Christmas Weekend “Worship.” Because this is the weekend many of our readers will be visiting various churches they don’t normally frequent, it’s a good weekend to be “surprised.”

Share what you like that’s on topic, but I’ll admit I’m looking for the following: [Continue reading]

There’s been a bunch of detailed reviews of Multnomah Bible professor Paul Metzger’s book Consuming Jesus already out there. (Be sure and check out the Scot McKnight-Darryl Dash debate for one.) I’m not going to try and weigh in on the issues better people are discussing. I may sound a little “Joel Osteen on Larry King” on this one: “Well Larry, I really never thought about that…”

The fact is that Paul Metzger’s premise that evangelicalism has become a consumer movement and that consumer movement has made it a sick movement is about as fundamental a premise of the seven year history of the Internet Monk web site as anyone could state. I called evangelicalism a niche market the first year I started writing, 2000, and haven’t quit. Those of you who have appreciated my own critiques of evangelicalism will probably join me in underlining most of this book, standing up and cheering, dancing on furniture, weeping, cussing and generally having an old-fashioned revival meeting from cover to cover. In fact, if you are like me, you’ll be complaining that the book is too short and you’ll be asking Metzger to double the size of this baby in the next edition. (And those of you who call me a whiner should stop reading now and go have some egg nog.) [Continue reading]

You are invited to add your insights on the similarities of these three stories.

Three stories. Three men in the second half of life.

Story one. An almost perfect man loses everything. Unknown to him, God is in a contest with Satan, proving that the this man’s righteousness is no fluke. He loses family, wealth and health. He is exiled from his community, watches his reputation dissolve, despairs of life and demands that God give him an opportunity to argue his innocence. Instead, he hears three friends and a young theologian repeat the conventional wisdom that his losses are punishment for his hidden sins. After insisting he has done nothing to cause God to punish him, the sufferer witnesses God’s arrival in a whirlwind to present the sufferer with a series of enigmatic questions. Does the sufferer know his place in the world? Is he competent to put God on trial? Does he know God’s purposes and perspectives? The sufferer abandons his case and embraces humility. God pronounces him innocent, condemns his friends for their theology and restores the man to his place of prosperity and blessing. [Continue reading]

John Armstrong questions the concept of Christian hedonism, and interestingly, is immediately told that conversation shouldn’t happen. Sound familiar to anyone?

BTW- I heard the confrontation of Colson’s talk on “Duty” by Piper that Armstrong refers to. It was at a Ligonier Conference years ago. The room went into shock at Piper calling out Colson, and at a Q & A session later, R.C. had to sooth a booing section of the crowd. I mention that to say that John Piper isn’t adverse to confrontation. Odd that those who identify strongly as his theological team regularly call out anyone critical of Piper as being needlessly divisive in the reformed faith. I’m sure that will all be clear if I just think about it enough. [Continue reading]

This is the season of “Best of” lists, and I’m sure Pierced For Our Transgressions by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey and Andrew Sach will be on more than a few lists. In the past year, Pierced For Our Transgressions may be the best-reviewed, highest recommended book in the Reformed blogosphere.

It was also one of the most anticipated and well-recommended books of the year. Endorsements and recommendations for PFOT are a “Who’s Who” of Reformed theologians, pastors and authors. Clearly, someone felt this was going to be “the” book to toss into the simmering controversies about theories of the atonement. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: Check out what Williams really said when he used the word “legend.” Talk about a hit piece. Sad.

Here’s the Transcript. Check out the deliberate misquoting.

UPDATE II: Here’s Williams just a few days ago when asked if he believed in the virgin birth.

Yes; I believe that the conception of Jesus was a moment when the creative action of God produced a reality as new in its way as the first moment of creation itself. And I believe that what opened the way for this was the work of God through human history over centuries, coming to its fullest moment in Mary’s consent to God’s call. The recognition of the uniqueness and newness of Jesus is a recognition of the absolute freedom of God to break the chains of cause and effect that lock us into our sins and failures; the virginal conception is an outward sign of this divine freedom to make new beginnings.

Religion journalists. There simply is no word for them when it comes to Biblical ignorance. Well….how about ignorant? [Continue reading]

An Advent/Christmas devotion and greetings.

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UPDATE: Rev. Dowd has graciously joined the comment thread.

Thank God For Evolution! is available as a free pdf download. If you haven’t read the book and don’t plan on it, please keep your comments about the book and the author appropriately humble. Don’t expect a creationist debate in the comments of this post. Also, I am not a scientist, and I don’t play one on my blog.

Michael Dowd may be the most optimistic person you’ll ever hear or read.

Dowd is an evangelist for the marriage of evolution and…..everything. Religion. Philosophy. Psychology. Politics. Human relationships. Education. Child-raising. Environmentalism. Marriage.

“What is the whole duty of man?” According to Dowd, it’s to discover and participate in the transforming power of the “Great Story” of “Creathism,” Dowd’s word for the marriage of a materialistic, evolutionary, basically pantheistic worldview with all our quests for meaning, improvement and knowledge.

When I first received Thank God for Evolution! to review, I assumed I was going to be reading an attempt to reconcile traditional Christianity with the consensus of modern science regarding the age and history of the universe. Ever since I read Conrad Hyers’ The Meaning of Creation and realized that the Bible wasn’t a science book and its inspiration wasn’t involved in the views of science in ancient cultures, I’ve not lost much sleep over the relationship of religion and science. [Continue reading]

In the first place the situation in the actual world is much more complicated than that. The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians and 100 per cent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name; some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it….Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth many have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgments about Christians and non Christians in the mass. It is some use comparing cats and dogs, or even men and women, in the mass, because there one knows definitely which is which. Also, an animal does not turn (either slowly or suddenly) from a dog into a cat. But when we are comparing Christians in general with non-Christians in general, we are usually not thinking of real people whom we know at all, but only two vague ideas which we have got reading novels and newspapers. If you want to compare the bad Christian and the good Atheist, you must think about two real specimens whom you have actually met. Unless we come down to brass tacks in that way, we shall only be wasting time.

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Chapter 10, “Nice People or New Men.”

This paragraph of Mere Christianity brought into sharp focus something that had been hiding away in my mind for some time: Christians have entirely too much to say about the subject of who is and who isn’t a Christian. One of the largest barriers to the communication of the Gospel to our culture may very well turn out to be our obsessive need to be all-knowing on who is and who is not a Christian. [Continue reading]