Here's Greg Boyd on Martin Luther King.

Steve Brown on war and peace:

When one gets into the specifics of which war to fight, how to go about obtaining justice, what kind of force should be used and how in particular one should protect the innocent, the way gets kind of muddy. (“The devil is in the details.”) Someone has said that simplicity on this side of complexity isn’t worth dink, but that simplicity on the other side of complexity is incredibly valuable. I sometimes fear that Christians (both pacifist Christians and “kill the enemy for Jesus” Christians) have never taken the time to go through the complexity. Jesus said that we were to be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.”

That’s not an easy thing to do and, if it seems to be, we haven’t understood.

I've liked that idea of post-complexity simplicity for a long time. Of course, getting there is another matter.

A survey of John Searle's philosophy of consciousness.

For Searle, genuine freedom is incompatible with determinism, and that’s that. Given this, he turns to quantum mechanical indeterminism to make space for free will. His admittedly tentative solution is that the unreduced conscious mind might play an independent role in directing brain processes that are subject to indeterminacy at the neuronal level.

That's ok, I didn't understand it either.


HT: A&LDaily

VOM, Iraq:

On January 6, four churches and three convents were damaged in coordinated bombings. According to numerous media reports, the blasts occurred within five minutes of each other and involved mortar shells, explosive devices and car bombs. In Baghdad, the St. George Chaldean Church in Ghadir quarter, a Chaldean convent in the Zaafaraniya quarter and a Greek-Melkite parish were attacked. In Mosul, the St. Paul Chaldean Church and the House of the Holy Spirit, a Chaldean convent, were simultaneously bombed. A Dominican convent in Mosul was also attacked and an Ancient Assyrian Church in the al-Nur district was damaged when a parked car blew up outside the building. At least six people were injured, one of them seriously, in the explosions. Pray for Iraqi Christians as they deal with the effects of this attack. Pray for healing for those injured. Ask God to enable Iraqi Christians to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer as they suffer for Him.

So Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution "to fit God's standards." Greg Boyd is confused, and I'm rapidly running out of candidates to vote for.

Dan Edelen on Ragnarok, Recession, and Real ID:

The early Church prepared for problems. In fact, they listened to their prophets and sprang into action. But where are our prophets? And in lieu of prophets, why can’t we seem to heed our own common sense? Yet I can’t think of one major Church leader in this country talking about economic issues and how the Church must face them.

Should Christians apologize to Muslims for the Crusades? Nathan Bradfield, citing Al Mohler and a few others, doesn't think so.

I say it's worth a bit more thought.

MercatorNet reviews The Whisperers - a book about private life in Stalin's Russia:

Figes has compiled so many stories of sorrow and injustice that the book is hard reading. Combined with many photos of unsmiling adults and children with haunted eyes it is a compelling document, bearing witness to the tribulations of a whole nation that took place within living memory.

MercatorNet critiques Pullman's Golden Compass. The verdict: disorderly and confused, which is not much of a surprise considering Pullman has abandoned God.

An American's prayer for the New Year, from Ben Witherington.

Owen Strachan begins exploring a theology of ambition:

Christians have always struggled with the tendency to pit prayer and meditation on Scripture against action. Those who do so always lose. If we emphasize prayer to the detriment of action, we overspiritualize life and become passive. If we emphasize action to the detriment of prayer, we live as practical atheists. Neither option is sound, and both will lead to a damaged way of life. Far better to couple prayer with action, to bathe action in prayer, and so to live in a combination of trust and dependence.

Christmas Roundup:

• Dan Edelen on Christian contentment
• Michael Spencer: Three Stories
  
• Ben Witherington on C. S. Lewis and Christmas
• The Krusty Sage on... idiots
• And even a Christmas lolcat!
  

Here's a fascinating, well-written article about the worrisome decline of reading and the accompanying deterioration of the civilized mind. In addition to the disturbing social implications involved, I think the problem carries spiritual significance as well, given Christianity's emphasis on the Word and its legacy of ancient writings. The article missed this aspect, due to its evolutionary perspective, but it's very much worth reading anyway.

HT: A&LD

An excellent post from Ben Witherington, prompted by the Colorado shooting, about gun control and violence:

When you are afraid, it is 'shoot first, ask questions later', and behind all of this is the attitude that my life is more important than the life of the other person, especially the maniac with the gun. I disagree with this whole premise. Every person is a person of sacred worth, and every person is someone for whom Jesus died. Period.

Have a care and read the whole thing.


UPDATE: Greg Boyd weighs in.

The iMonk on the problem with real Christians:

So it is with being a Christian. I am one. I want to be one. I’m deeply aware of how often I’m not one. Simul justus et peccator and several other things.

VOM, Turkmenistan:

Baptist pastor Vyacheslav Kalataevsky has been denied permission to remain in his native town of Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan. According to Forum 18 News, "Kakataevsky's visa application to remain with his wife and family was rejected by the Migration Service and he will have to leave the country. He is due to leave on a flight to Moscow on December 11." Officials have refused to explain the reason for denying the visa, Pastor Kalataevsky explained to Forum, "But of course it is linked to my activity as a believer. Everything that has happened to me since 2001 is related to that." Pastor Kalataevsky was released in November after eight months in prison. Pray for his family during this difficult time.

Just in from MercatorNet: two Australian intellectuals are proposing a "carbon tax" for newborns! Where will the madness end?

At the heart of this disdain for new human life is a lack of faith in our capacity to solve our problems.

Or an unwillingness to acknowledge the one who can.

Uganda is currently dealing with an outbreak of Ebola, and local Christians have set aside Wednesday to fast and seek the Lord. We received the news several days from a Ugandan brother who we met when he visited the states earlier this year. Pray for Uganda.

From A&LD: An interview with Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass Trilogy. Though Pullman is essentially an atheist, (why is it that atheists always look like that?) the interview is interesting as an inside perspective on the story, and sheds some light on Pullman's inspirations and worldview. Obviously, his rejection of God is disturbing. Also, I really don't understand how he can say this:

The Lord of the Rings is essentially trivial. Narnia is essentially serious, though I don't like the answer Lewis comes up with. If I was doing it at all, I was arguing with Narnia. Tolkien is not worth arguing with.

I think he has grossly underestimated Tolkien's work. 'Trivial' is the last adjective I ever thought I'd hear applied to The Lord of the Rings.

Brant Hansen of Kamp Krusty recently posted about the complex spiritual and psychological issues involved in taking antidepressants, and soon followed up with a second post. Michael Spencer (the Internet Monk) weighed in and added some links of his own. Interesting stuff.

Keeping tabs on Google Books:

In July 2004, Google began quietly scanning and digitizing Michigan's library. Five months later, in December 2004, the company officially announced the "Google Print for Libraries" project. (After the effort hit snags and received some bad press, it was rebranded "Google Book Search.") Google partnered with five major libraries--Michigan, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford's Bodleian, and the New York Public Library--in an attempt to scan the pages of 15 million volumes. These digital books would be kept and indexed in a Google database, which would be made available, for free, to the public.

The scope has changed in the intervening years. Initially Google planned to scan the 15 million books in six years. That projection was revised upwards to more than 20 million books, and the New Yorker recently reported that Google is now aiming to scan at least 32 million books, besting the number of titles in the largest bibliographic database, WorldCat. It hopes to finish within ten years. As one Googlehead told the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin, "I think of Google Books as our moon shot."

The whole thing is quite similar to what is happening to the music industry, right down to the copyright lawsuits.

A blogger poses the question - Who would Jesus bomb? - and pretty much gives the standard answer: the bad guys.

Christians through the centuries have avoided both pacifism and militarism: holding to a "just war" concept that killing is never good but is sometimes best.

"Never good, but sometimes best." Just think about that for awhile.

(HT: Kingdom People)

An interview with Leland Ryken about the ESV Literary Study Bible that he co-authored with his son.

The C. S. Lewis foundation on the role of beauty within science:

It would appear that beauty functions as sort of handmaiden to the truth in the process of discovery. She either ushers one into the presence of her master, or testifies to our place in the presence of greatness. If that be the case, then it might also be the case, as Chandrasekhar suggests in his work, that a mind trained or gifted with a strong aesthetic sense, one that can recognize beauty when she is revealed, is one that is particularly equipped to make the sorts of discoveries that form the foundations of our most profound and productive understandings of the universe. In other words, those who know beauty when they see it will be the best physicists.