I returned an hour ago from setting up the collectible books for tomorrow's sale. The collectible sales are great: you get to preview the selection the day before, instead of the hour before.

I found a nice copy of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, two more Dostoevsky titles, Chesterton's Father Brown Mystery Stories, and a pristine copy of The Gifts Of The Jews, by Thomas Cahill, author of How The Irish Saved Civilization, which I already have. Also selected a beautifully worn hardback copy of Lloyd C. Douglas's Magnificent Obsession, which I didn't have yet, as well as a short history of weaponry with this intriguing subtitle:

Being a short history of war and weaaponry from earliest times to the present, noting the gratifying progress made by man since his first crude, small-scale efforts to do away with those who disagreed with him.

From National Geographic: The 100 greatest adventure books of all time.

(HT: Instapundit)

Mediocrity and materialism are systematically strangling the Western Christian (and therefore the Western Church), and like the proverbial frog in the frying pan, he doesn't even know it. Dan Edelen is one of the last feeble voices among the faithful who are gasping for air amidst the suffocating lukewarmedness. He always writes good stuff, but this post simply defies adjectives.

Warning: side effects may include goose bumps.

Why do men need so much alteration? The Christian answer - that we have used our free will to become very bad - is so well known that it hardly needs to be stated. But to bring this doctrine into real life in the minds of modern men, and even of modern Christians, is very hard. When the Apostles preached, they could assume even in their Pagan hearers a real consciousness of deserving the Divine anger. The Pagan mysteries existed to allay this consciousness, and the Epicurean philosophy claimed to deliver men from the fear of eternal punishment. It was against this background that the Gospel appeared as good news. It brought news of possible healing to men who knew that they were mortally ill. But all this has changed. Christianity now has to preach the diagnosis - in itself very bad news - before it can win a hearing for the cure.

-C.S. Lewis

WORLD on wedding registries:

I hate wedding registries, mainly because they make no sense. The giving of wedding gifts, presumably, began in the dawn of time when parents and friends realized that newlyweds were poor and had no forks...

Our culture of affluence has grown far beyond forks and tablecloths and hope chests...

Heh, I'd have to agree. I've actually felt this way for a good while.

I'd agree that Lewis and Tolkien wove free-market themes into their books. But this strikes me as a gigantic trivialization.

Victor Davis Hanson is unimpressed with the great European experiment.

Here's a thought-provoking article about community from Dan Edelen's archives. Thanks to Jonathan Marshall for the tip.

When we talk about community in the Church, we simply do not understand what is at stake. As long as I have been a believer, I have seen all kinds of communities, but very little community. Our lack of reliance on God (since we usually have cash to pay for anything that faith would ordinarily cover) translates into a lack of reliance on others within the Body of Faith.

The accelerating evaporation of intelligence and initiative is nothing to take lightly.

Well, maybe sometimes.

1930: Define rhythm.

1960: The movement of music in time, including tempo and meter, is called _______.

1990: The movement of music in time, including tempo and meter, is called:
A. melody
B. harmony
C. rhythm
D. interval

2000: The movement of music in time, commonly called rhythm, makes you feel:
A. I don't understand the question.
B. I think this is an unfair question.
C. I don't know what the word rhythm means.
D. It doesn't matter how I feel, as long as it is my own authentic feeling.

-From The Future Of Christian Higher Education, pgs. 96-97

Feedburner is up and running for the new URL: click on the link in the upper right to keep the crumbs coming.

Like books? Check out Librarything.com. I'm still scoping it out, but it looks to be a pretty nifty site. (Hat tip to Julie Neidlinger)

Here's another cool-looking tool in the same strain: Zotero, for Firefox.

WORLD on summer reading:

It’s June, when America tells itself to read something on the beach. Now, I don’t subscribe to this theory of reading. In An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis rips into those who read “to pass the time.” The idea of reading on planes and trains and beaches is the kind of reading where we want our mind distracted, rather than altered. The long and short of Lewis’s theory is that a book should be read so that it might change us, might link us up together more like we were before the fall. The whole idea of summer reading, in my experience, runs counter to the idea of literature as change agent. But then again, it’s still reading. And like my friends say about the Harry Potter books, at least they get people reading.

An excellent, excellent article about the cultural abandonment of the magic and merits of manual labor. Not knowing how to use your hands is bad. Period.

And not appreciating knowing how to use your hands is worse.

MercatorNet sends another one sailing out of the park - this time it's about Richard Dawkin's campaign against theism:

Dawkins confuses religion and the use of religion – I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt intellectually and assume he does so deliberately -- in order to promote his thesis that religion is evil. Religion itself is not evil – just as science is not evil – but it can be used for evil purposes, just as science can.

Using religion to convince the 9/11 terrorists to commit mass murder by knocking down the World Trade Towers was a profoundly evil use of religion. Using airplanes to carry out that evil was a profoundly evil use of aeronautical science. However, Dawkins looks only at the evil uses of religion – never the good it effects -- and only the good uses of science – never the harms it does. A balanced ethical approach requires us to recognise both the goods and harms of both religion and science, and to try to stop the evil uses and to promote the good ones of each.

Read the whole thing.

Having children in an anti-children culture:

In an era of sound bites in the battle of ideas, moms and dads are on the frontlines in defending the family in about 15 words or less.

Light book sale this morning, but I found some Dorothy Sayers, George MacDonald, and Albert Schweitzer. Also picked up a historical novel on St. Patrick, an imaginative literature textbook/anthology, and a philosophical work on Money and the Meaning of Life. Oh, and another copy of The Robe: I think I have three now.

Michael Yon has a good grassroots perspective on the intricacies of the Iraq war. His latest dispatch documents the quiet but dramatic arrest of a high-ranking Iraqi coalition official.

"Blink" or "Think": an article about making decisions.

Free markets mean open borders. Absolutely.

(HT: Instapundit)

After prayerfully considering some thoughtful concerns from a good friend, I have elected to drop the political component of this blog - indefinitely. I see nothing intrinsically wrong with paying attention to politics, but I see great danger in becoming overly entangled. So, with a last "good luck" to Ron, I'm stepping back to clarify my priorities and generally refresh my perspective.


There are two great lies that I've heard / The day you eat of the fruit of that tree / You will not surely die / and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class Republican / and if you want to be saved / you have to learn to be like Him....

My first allegiance is not to a flag / a country, or a man / my first allegiance is not to Democracy or blood / it's to a King and a Kingdom....

-Derek Webb

Here's an excellent essay on head coverings from one of WORLD Magazine's most thoughtful writers: Andree Seu.

I read in 1 Corinthians 11 that the woman's head is to be covered in worship. The modern Christian consensus tells me that is a relative and obsolete command, dealing with some first-century problem in the city of Corinth. My high-school literary skills tell me otherwise: The command is rooted in creation (verses 7-9) and in nature (verse 14). And if that weren't ironclad enough, I am to cover my head "because of the angels."

The angel detail is so cryptic, so off the wall, so without explanation, that it becomes the strongest argument of all. Where is the "cultural relativity" case now, where angels transcend all historical agitations?

Dan of Cerulean Sanctum posts a scathing but clearheaded critique of modern prophecy and includes a compelling story of a true "word of knowledge."

YEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ron Paul: nowhere on Gallup, everywhere on youtube.

I hope there aren't a bunch of unethical supporters (or detractors!) distorting the stats.


Also, LVMI has just uploaded an economics book by Paul in PDF format.