April 2, 2007 by iMonk
UPDATE: Lifeway was kind enough to send me this link to an “Author Interview” with Dr. MacArthur regarding this book.
UPDATE II: Macarthur’s takedown of John Armstrong is critiqued by Andrew Sandlin.
I would like to thank Phenix and Phenix Literary Publicists for providing a review copy of this book.
There are two ways I could write this review.
One would be to try and write something lengthy, attempt to be really interesting, with lots of good prose, plenty of positivity, and a bit of humor. Goal: Impress the audience and gain some credibility and light applause.
The other would be to be straight-forward, to the point and honest without wasting the reader’s time. Goal: Tell the truth.
Well….this is the truth war. [Continue reading]
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March 30, 2007 by iMonk
I’d like to thank Campbellsville University for hosting this conference. It’s been great and I hope they have many other similar events.
At his third session on “Lament,” Michael Card spoke about Jesus the Lamenter. These are a few thoughts I wrote down in my notebook as I listened.
Scripture reading: Isaiah 53. Then he read an essay from the new book, “The Hidden Face of God.”
At his uncle’s funeral, Card never heard what he most needed to hear: Blessed are those who weep.” [Continue reading]
March 29, 2007 by iMonk
I want to run through some of the highlights of Michael Card’s teaching sessions on “The Lost Language of Lament.” These are all short summaries from my notebook.
On 9-11, Calvin Seerveld called Michael and said, “See….you have no songs to sing.”
The language of Lament is the lost language of worship, and that loss leaves many people with no language for their experience.
At the end of his life, Van Gogh painted a church without a door. This is the experience of many people. They cannot find a way into the faith in God they once had. (Van Gogh was a minister for a while, known for his compassion for Belgian miners.) The faith was once there, but now there is no way in. [Continue reading]
March 29, 2007 by iMonk
I’m going to try and blog the conference a bit.
(Thursday morning, 9:09 a.m.) I’m at the “Worship and Arts” conference sponsored by Campbellsvile University. (Actually at a local church) Small crowd. Michael Card is the main teacher. John Mark Macmillan- who I’ve never heard of- is leading worship. He brought a band. It’s pretty obvious to me from the projections I’m seeing that the theme of the conference- “Lament: Passion and Praise In A Minor Key”- is going to be reflected in some of the worship songs. An immediate departure from the usual “happy clappy” start ups. One lyric said “I don’t need a fairy tale god who lives in a book.” Now we’re talking. [Continue reading]
December 8, 2006 by iMonk
UPDATE III: Joel Hunter has written a massive substantial response to the podcasts that go along with the ads.
UPDATE II: The pastor whose church produced the ads has a blog that is full of provocative ideas. If you want a glimpse into what the emerging church growth culture looks like, this is a very good window.
UPDATE:Bill Kinnon blogs about the “stolen intellectual property” angle.
Noel Heikkinnen sent me the links to these church created “Apple/PC” parodies because they reminded him of a discussion we’d had about churches advertising themselves as alternatives to traditional churches. (Noel’s experiences and opinions were instructive. I hope he writes them sometime.)
Check out the videos, then come right back. (Let me say right here that I haven’t even visited the web site of the church who made these and nothing I’m writing has anything to do with that church in particular. Please don’t write me and tell me I am wronging that church. The ads are out there, and discussing them isn’t attacking the church.)
My initial reaction to these videos is two-fold. [Continue reading]
November 13, 2006 by iMonk
Wayne Grudem is accumulating an impressive collection of credentials as an influential theologian within conservative evangelicalism. Grudem’s Systematic Theology is as close to a standard evangelical theology as you can find today. His writing on Biblical prophecy is standard reading for anyone interested in issues debated among charismatic and cessationist evangelicals. His work on gender is gaining authoritative status and quickly earning him the mantle of “most widely cited” theologian among conservative evangelicals.
Grudem’s new book, Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism, is a definitive book for complementarians looking for an organized, well-written collection of arguments against the growing acceptance of egalitarianism among evangelicals. The book’s 263 pages are made up of short chapters, clearly stated arguments and responses, representative quotes, extensive footnote documentation, and a willingness to get to the point without embarrassment. The reader is never in doubt about where Grudem is going or what he believes is at stake. [Continue reading]
October 2, 2006 by iMonk
Frequently brilliant. Dependably provocative. Totally truthful. One of the best bloggers on the net, hands down. Infuriating. Frustrating. And, of course, a person who drove me back to the books and my Bible over and over again, making me better every time.
Josh S has ended his blogging career, and I salute him. From “I Think I Need A Stiff Drink” to the “High Barbaree,” we won’t see his kind around the blogosphere again.
TRs have lost an adversary they never defeated, who told Calvinists the cold, hard truth and, even when he went nuts, always had something worth reading.
Here’s to ya Josh. If I’m ever in a theological foxhole, I want you in there with me. God bless you, and thanks for the many awesome posts.
May 20, 2006 by iMonk
My DaVinci Code Review. (Thanks to Nathan Bell for the Photoshops.)
I was going to write a review that attempted to be a coherent narrative, but considering we are talking about The DaVinci Code, one of the worst movies I’ve seen in years, that would be handing the film something it definitely didn’t give to its audience. I will, instead, give you a collection of impressions, and you, the reader, can supply the connections, by breaking a mysterious code or something.
Be warned. You won’t be getting any little signals that there’s been a sudden break in logic and worldview with the previous paragraph. Again, much like this film. Just imagine you have severe ADD or that you kept dozing off and waking up in a different film. [Continue reading]
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March 18, 2006 by iMonk
Because my son is a fan of the original graphic novel, “V for Vendetta,” my drive home from the theater this afternoon was a seminar in all the ways the new film differed from the novel. Those observations cemented my impression that the film I’d seen not only differed from the original book in ways that were important, but that the vision of this film had been gaudily painted with the heavy-handed strokes of the Bush-loathing left. Such tampering created a flawed, but a not quite ruined, piece of entertainment. [Continue reading]
March 1, 2006 by iMonk
Update: Those of you who keep mentioning that this post is disjointed need to remember that it is simply some interaction with the main points of Phil Johnson’s talk. There’s no attempt for this to stand alone; it’s not meant to be polished or comprehensive.
Tim Challies is “liveblogging” the Grace Community Church Shepherd’s Conference. One of his posts is a summary of Phil Johnson’s session on “Is The Reformation Over?” While I have no intention of resurrecting blogwars of the past, I am going to interact with this post. Please realize that I am interacting with Challies’ summaries, and not Phil’s actual words. (Challies is doing an obviously great job.)
I am interested in this topic for several reasons. I have written on this subject in an early IM essay called “Throw Luther From The Train: Will We Save The Reformation?” Many of my IM essays deal with many of the same concerns that Johnson voices, particularly with Charismatic excesses and an abandonment of the heritage of the Reformation by evangelicals. Many of my essays on worship and the condition of contemporary evangelicalism are from a position similar to Johnson’s. I have been deeply influenced by many of those who influence him. [Continue reading]
November 9, 2004 by iMonk
Glory Hallelujah. Pass the offering plate and someone say “Help me, Jesus!” Revival has arrived, and the evangelist is my favorite atheist, Christopher Hitchens.
So here is what I want to say on the absolutely crucial matter of secularism. Only one faction in American politics has found itself able to make excuses for the kind of religious fanaticism that immediately menaces us in the here and now. And that faction, I am sorry and furious to say, is the left. From the first day of the immolation of the World Trade Center, right down to the present moment, a gallery of pseudointellectuals has been willing to represent the worst face of Islam as the voice of the oppressed. How can these people bear to reread their own propaganda? Suicide murderers in Palestine “disowned and denounced by the new leader of the PLO” described as the victims of “despair.” The forces of al-Qaida and the Taliban represented as misguided spokespeople for antiglobalization. The blood-maddened thugs in Iraq, who would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote, pictured prettily as “insurgents” or even, by Michael Moore, as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. If this is liberal secularism, I’ll take a modest, God-fearing, deer-hunting Baptist from Kentucky every time, as long as he didn’t want to impose his principles on me (which our Constitution forbids him to do).
(Yes, it was the Kentucky reference. Give me a break.)
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November 3, 2004 by iMonk
Just returned from seeing Caedmon’s Call with about a 100 OBI students and staff. A few reflections on the concert and the new CD in extended comments.
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