What I'll Be Reading and Studying in 2008

When it comes to reading books I have always multi-tasked. So now I am reading, as usual, 5-10 books at a time. I do this to learn. And, reading for me is relaxing and a hobby. Sitting down with a good book and reading slowly through it takes the place of a lot of other things for me.

My reading emphases are as follows:

• Christology and New Testament studies, to include regularly reading the Bible. I'll finish the excellent book by Greg Boyd and George Eddy - The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. And, I hope to finally work through N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God. I've also got Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book ready to go.


• More focused biblical-theological studies on the Kingdom of God. I remain impresseed with J.P. Moreland's Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit's Power. Moreland articulates what I have found myself doing for many years. I strongly recommend this book to you if you have not yet read it.


• Certain problems in the philosophy of religion - esp. the existence or non-existence of God, the problem of evil, Plantingian warranted belief, the soul-body problem, and others. I'm now reading University of Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard's The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul. I hope to be making some specific posts on this book in the future.


• Certain Old Testament issues - e.g., I've read and will be reading studies on the Exodus tradition as historical and counter-claims that it is not historical. I've got a number of the minimalist texts already. I'll pick up James Hoffmeier's Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition.


• Issues of Christian spirituality. I've purchased some new Howard Thurman books and will finish them. Thurman is especially good on showing how authentic Jesus-spirituality and outward social action are inextricably linked. Tony Campolo and Mary Darling have written a Thurman-esque book - The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice. I've got that in my shelf and will give it slow read soon.


• Finally, I'll hope to read through the Bible again. My friend Craig Keener says: "We live in an "instant" culture that delights in shortcuts, but we cannot settle for prepacked verses we have heard quoted by others—even by "everyone else." . . . We must study the Bible passage by passage and book by book. Only then will God begin to open fully the treasures of wisdom and knowledge He has given us in Scripture." The version I will use for this is The Books of the Bible (with the orange peel cover!). This is a unique Bible in the following ways, and it's only $8.99 online:
  - Chapter and verse numbers are removed from the text(A chapter and verse range is given at the bottom of each page)
  - Each book's natural literary breaks are shown instead
  - There are no notes, cross references, or section headings in the text
  - Text is presented in one column rather than two or more
  - Books that have historically been divided into parts are restored
  - Books are presented in an order that gives readers more help in understanding

Last Minute Gift - "The Bible Experience"

One of today’s great New Testament scholars is Scot McKnight. I regularly check out his excellent blog. Scot strongly recommends picking up The Bible Experience, which is an audio Bible unlike any other.

For a sampling, watch the 11-minute video here or here.

John Maxwell says: “Inspired By…The Bible Experience is exactly what its title indicates, an experience. I’ve listened to many audio Bibles over the years, but none have achieved what The Bible Experience has, which is to bring the Bible to life in a very real, compelling, accessible and experiential way. I would strongly recommend that you listen to it and share it with others. I guarantee it will change the way you and they engage with the word of God.”

William Lane Craig on How Noetic Structures Either Allow or Disallow Epistemic Certainty

In his monthly e-letter William Lane Craig explains how noetic structures allow or disallow for confidence in our reason. I think what he says is good. It's similar to the kind of things Plantinga writes about noetic structures, esp. in Plantinga's work on properly basic beliefs and the "Great Pumpkin objection."

Craig writes:

"I presented a well-attended lecture [at the annual convention of the Evangelical Theological and Philosophical Societies] on the question "Is Uncertainty a Sound Foundation for Religious Tolerance?" My target here was certain philosophers who claim that religious tolerance should be based on two factors: (1) our grasp of moral principles which state that persecution of other religions is wrong and (2)uncertainty that one's own religion is true.

Such philosophers want to foster as much uncertainty about religious beliefs as they can and as much certainty about moral beliefs as they can as a way of increasing tolerance. I pointed out that this strategy backfires in a number of ways.

In the first place, with respect to a religion like Christianity, which commands us to love our neighbor and even our enemy, it's not uncertainty but certainty of that religion's truth that will increase religious toleration. Fostering uncertainty about such a religion will actually decrease people's motivation to be tolerant. In fact, for any religion which sees morality as based in God, undermining people's belief in God will undermine their confidence in the very moral principles which state that persecution is wrong!

In the second place, for people in many of the world religions, likeHinduism or Buddhism, increasing their confidence in the truth of certain moral principles will actually falsify their religions. [Emphasis mine] For these religions hold that moral values and the distinction between right and wrong belong to the realm of illusion. In reality, there is no distinction between good and evil: all is One. So you can't be a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Daoist and believe that persecution is really, objectively wrong. If you do believe that, you've falsified your religion. So you can't hold to those religions (even with uncertainty) and believe in the moral principle of tolerance. So this approach is really quite hopeless."

Put in a George Mavrodes way, in a Hindu or Buddhist or Taoist world (i.e., if the world were actually as these religions say it is), then being confident of certain moral principles would be weird.

Charles Taylor's Deconstruction of Nietzsche's Death of God

Today's nytimes reviews philosopher Charles Taylor's massive, 856-page book A Secular Age. Taylor deconstructs the "death nof God" idea as put forth by Nietzsche, arguing that, without God, life is meaningless.

From the review: "Taylor’s deconstruction of the death-of-God thesis rests on his conviction that “the arguments from natural science to Godlessness are not all that convincing.” He has no patience with atheists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, who argue that science, particularly the theory of evolution, has consigned religion to the ash heap of history. Taylor, in contrast, sees science as reinforcing religion, since God is implicated in a social existence where the contemplation of meaning and order suggests “something divine in us.”"

"“A Secular Age” is a work of stupendous breadth and erudition..."

Of especial interest to me is the distinction taylor makes between Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. Some of my studies which I incorporated into my doctoral thesis were of Weber's idea of "disenchantment," and the resultant "dull, routine, and flat" universe. The sociology of Durkheim proves to be more optimistic, and sees value in "religion as providing a framework of meaning, a realm of unifying symbols and a sense of belonging."

Taylor writes: “Our access to the will of God, through his design is crucial to the story of the modern moral order and to the new neo-Durkheimian understanding of God’s presence among us.”

This review, plus the comments below (emphases mine), tell me that this is a book I will have to read, as will anyone who wants to go deep into the heart of secularism so as to understand the current condition of Europe and North America.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review) : If the author had accomplished nothing more than a survey of the voluminous body of "secularization theory," he would have done something valuable. But, although Taylor clearly articulates his disdain for the view that modernity ineluctably led to the death of God, he goes far beyond a literature review...In addition to its conceptual value, this study is notable for its lucidity. Taylor has translated complex philosophical theories into language that any educated reader will be able to follow, yet he has not sacrificed an iota of sophistication or nuance. A magisterial book.

Publishers Weekly (starred review) : In his characteristically erudite yet engaging fashion, Taylor takes up where he left off in his magnificent Sources of the Self (1989) as he brilliantly traces the emergence of secularity and the processes of secularization in the modern age...Taylor sweeps grandly and magisterially through the 18th and 19th centuries as he recreates the history of secularism and its parallel challenges to religion. He concludes that a focus on the religious has never been lost in Western culture, but that it is one among many stories striving for acceptance. Taylor's examination of the rise of unbelief in the 19th century is alone worth the price of the book and offers an essential reminder that the Victorian age, more than the Enlightenment, dominates our present view of the meanings of secularity. Taylor's inspired combination of philosophy and history sparkles in this must-read virtuoso performance.

The Economist : One finds big nuggets of insight, useful to almost anybody with an interest in the progress of human society...A vast ideological anatomy of possible ways of thinking about the gradual onset of secularism as experienced in fields ranging from art to poetry to psychoanalysis...Taylor also lays bare the inconsistencies of some secular critiques of religion.

Baltimore Sun : Sophisticated, erudite...with excursions into history, philosophy and literature, A Secular Age is a weighty and challenging tome. It is also a brilliant account of the "sensed context" in which secularization developed. And a moving meditation, by a believer, on the "ineradicable bent" of human beings to respond to something beyond life, to keep open "the transcendent window."--Glenn C. Altschuler

New York Sun : A salutary and sophisticated defense of how life was lived before the daring views of a tiny secular elite inspired mass indifference, and how it might be lived in the future.--Michael Burleigh

Vancouver Sun : [A] big, powerful book...[Taylor's] book is massive in its historical and philosophical scope. Penetrating and dense, it would take months to fully digest. Loosely structured, it's crammed with original insights. Taylor, 75, can pack more into one of his complex paragraphs than most prevaricating, deconstructing academic philosophers can say in a chapter, or even a book...The book explores the immense ramifications of how the West shifted in a few centuries from being a society in which "it was virtually impossible not to believe in God" to one in which belief is optional, often frowned upon.--Douglas Todd

Los Angeles Times : In A Secular Age, philosopher Charles Taylor takes on the broad phenomenon of secularization in its full complexity...[A] voluminous, impressively researched and often fascinating social and intellectual history...Taylor's account encompasses art, literature, science, fashion, private life--all those human activities that have been sometimes more, sometimes less affected by religion over the last five centuries.--Jack Miles

Montreal Gazette : The real genius of this erudite and profound book resides in its grandeur of theme and richness of detail. For all its imposing intellectual density, it is a delight to read; at times, it was literally impossible to put down. Yet it is also a work that ought to be read by degrees--one chapter at a time, with ample pause for reflection.--Lorenzo DiTommaso

American Prospect : In an idiosyncratic blend of the philosophical, the historical, and the speculative, Taylor describes the shift from a world brim-full with spirits and magic to a world where divinity is absent. His account resists the idea that the rise of secularism is a process of subtraction, of loss, and of disenchantment. Rather, Taylor describes secularity's birth as the migration of ideas, subtle changes in those ideas, and the opening of new possibilities. If Taylor's communitarian scholarship celebrated historical and social rootedness, A Secular Age is an encomium to the sheer happenstance of how those circumstances arose.--Azziz Huq

Slate : Taylor's masterful integration of history, sociology, philosophy, and theology demands much of the reader. In return you will be convinced that Charles Taylor is one of the smartest and deepest social thinkers of our time.--Tyler Cowen

Cleveland Plain Dealer : A culminating dispatch from the philosophical frontlines. It is at once encyclopedic and incisive, a sweeping overview that is no less analytically rigorous for its breadth. Its subject is a philosophical history of the past, present and future of Western Christendom. As such, it begins with a deceptively simple question: How did it become possible for anyone to not believe in God?...A Secular Age recounts the history of an idea, in other words, but in it the past is not an inert, settled fact, but a reservoir to be drawn upon to shatter the sameness and the apparent inevitability of the present. As a history it clarifies crucial intellectual and theological divisions that continue to structure debates about divinity, but with the aim of reforming the way we think about them, "to show the play of destabilization and recomposition." Though this isn't a book you take to the beach [but why not?], it remains eminently readable. As philosophers go, Taylor is a kind of behaviorist, more concerned with elaborating the implications of a way of thinking than with showing its contradictions. Unlike most philosophers, though, Taylor seems at pains to remain accessible to a general audience to capture complex philosophical debate in ordinary language. An important part of Taylor's argument is that religion and the belief in God, most particularly the experience of transcendence, are not at all outmoded...Though it avoids predictions or prescriptions, A Secular Age leaves us with the sense that the future will be a far poorer, less human place, if we do not discover some expression for that transcendent otherness.--Steven Hayward

The Tablet : A Secular Age is a towering achievement...It shows the ways we have traveled from the automatic certainties of 1500 to the fragile alignments of today. It transforms the secularization debate.--David Martin

On Extraterrestrials & Dinosaurs

(The Sombrero Galaxy)

Recently one of my former MCCC philosophy students wrote and asked me a couple of questions. I thought I'd post my response here.

Hi ____ -

You asked: do I believe other life forms exist on other planets? Here's my position, which has nothing to do with belief in God or Christianity.

I am currently a "rare earth theorist." What does that mean? It's the position of astrophysicists Ward and Brownlee (University of Washington) as expressed in their book Rare Earth, as well as the position of Guillermo Gonzalez (Iowa State) in his book The Privileged Planet. Which is: definitely, most likely, "life" exists outside of earth, but such life is, most probably, no more than a flatworm. Probably, because of the vast improbability of all the needed rare earth factors coming together, there's no other intelligent life in the universe, outside of earth.

Note: This is a purely scientific theory, not a religious idea. For me, as both a theist and a Christian, whether or not there is intelligent life outside of earth has no effect on my philosophical and theological views.

Coming at this in another way, I see no biblical or theological reason to argue for or against life outside of earth.

Second, you ask: do I believe dinosaurs used to exist? Yes. Right now, my position would be similar to that of astronomer Hugh Ross. I do not see that the existence of dinosaurs at all negatively affects my belief in God and my Christian faith. For example, the word for "day" in the book of Genesis is the Hebrew word yom. "Yom" can be translated as "24-hour-period" or, e.g., "period of time" or "epoch" (like, "in the day of Abraham Lincoln). I choose to translate "yom," as used in the Genesis creation account, as "period of time." See Ross's website here for some points of view that interest me re. such discussions.

Steve Gaines on the Power of the Holy Spirit Without Physical Manifestations

A recent issue of Christianity Today had an article by Steve Gaines on praying for the power of the Holy Spirit to show up when we gather together as Jesus-followers. His article has many things I affirm. It also has some things I feel are misguided.

I've quoted the entire article below. My comments and concerns and questions are in bold.

"When God Comes to Church Is it wrong to pray that God will show up?"

by Steve Gaines

It was a warm spring Wednesday night in West Tennessee. Fifty or so of us faithful Southern Baptists were in church for prayer meeting. I was the 20-year-old college intern. It was part of my job to show up for these kinds of things. "Our spring revival starts in just a week and a half," the senior pastor was saying up front. He named the evangelist who would be coming to preach and told some of his credentials. "We sure want people to come to Christ during this series of meetings. In fact, before we start the prayer time, let's make a list of people here on the chalkboard.

Who of your relatives and friends and neighbors do you want to mention?"

A middle-aged woman with dark hair near the front raised her hand.

"I'm going to invite my neighbor in the next apartment. She's having lots of trouble in her life, I know. She really needs the Lord."

The pastor turned to write Lorene's neighbor on the board. A man in a denim shirt spoke up next. "We could pray for my brother-in-law to come. He's got a drinking problem. I don't know if he'd ever show up or not. I sure wish he would." Roy's brother-in-law was added to the list.

"Who else?" the pastor asked. I raised my hand.

"Yes, Steve?" the pastor said. "Who would you like us to pray for?" I knew that if God showed up, sinners would be touched and Christians would be stirred.

With all seriousness I replied, "Let's pray that God will show up at our revival."

I wasn't trying to be a smart aleck. I meant it with all my heart. Awkward silence. Heads swiveled toward me, then faced the front again. "Well, yes, we know the Lord will be here," a deacon declared, setting the record straight. I could tell I had committed a major boo-boo.

Though I had been a Christian only two years, I had heard enough sermons to know that God, of course, is everywhere. I even knew the word for it, omnipresent. But I also knew I had been at some meetings where God's presence was undeniably real, and others where it wasn't. At times it was almost palpable enough to reach out and touch with your hand.

In those special, holy times, you didn't want to move or cough for fear of breaking the moment. The leaders or singers on stage were eclipsed by the presence of one greater than they. It was not exaggerating to say that "God was in the house." I yearned to have this happen at our spring revival meeting. I knew that if God truly showed up, sinners would be touched and Christians would be stirred.

Unfortunately, the week came and went, the evangelist preached solid messages, we sang "Just as I Am," but not much happened. It turned out to be just another set of meetings. The next Wednesday night, one of the dear saints was blunt enough to ask out loud, "So why didn't we have a better revival this year?" I wanted to raise my hand and say, "Because God didn't show up!" But I knew I'd already said too much for a rookie youth intern. I held back. The thought did cross my mind, however, that if I ever served as pastor of a church, I hoped to lead people to hunger for the presence of God more than anything else. It's as if the church motto is "Come as you are; leave as you came."

Here I am now more than 25 years later, a fully credentialed, seminary-trained veteran of pastoral ministry. The various diplomas hang in nice frames on my office wall … still, in one sense I haven't changed from that night long ago. The cry of my heart is still for God to show up.

I once heard an old-time preacher speaking about God sending fire from heaven onto Mount Carmel during the prophet Elijah's day (1 Kings 18). He said that the manifest presence of God is "when God shows up, and he shows off!" He comes in not to take sides but to take over. When he arrives in splendor and glory, it is obvious to everyone that he is present and he is in charge. The human agendas fade away in the overwhelmingly awesome presence of the King of kings.

For years now this has been my primary prayer for every worship service. The longer I live, the less interested I am in how many people we have in the sanctuary. What is far more important to me is how much of God we have in the place. If he comes, we will have a wonderful service, no matter if there's only a handful.

I am not suggesting that God's people engage in fleshly emotionalism. God gets blamed for a lot that takes place in today's churches when in reality he had nothing to do with it. The Bible does not support Christians barking like dogs, rolling on the floor, laughing uncontrollably, or jerking and contorting. Nor does it mention angel feathers appearing at the church altar, gold dust forming on the minister's hands, or images of Mary appearing on the side of a building.

[OK - the Bible does not mention gold dust. So...? One cannot conclude, "Therefore, God would never, ever bring gold dust." In the Bible there are a lot of things that would appear very strange in a Western Eurocentric Enlightenment paradigm. "The Bible does not support... laughing uncontrollably, or jerking and contorting." How does the Bible not support this? Because such things are not mentioned? Acts chs. 1 & 2 describe, e.g., behaviors that again would not fit in to the Enlightenment worldview. The author simply states that the Bible does not support such things. But he gives no support for such a statement. I doubt that he could support his statement biblically. In the actual Bible a lot of strange and weird things happen.]

Something else is at work there; God should not be held responsible.

[You mean, Satan? Or, "the flesh?" If we really want God to come and heal and deliver, then we should be open to God's choice of methods to do this. And, let's say God does come, and someone gets healed. Like the brother-in-law with the drinking problem. Should he not laugh or twitch or move if God actually heals him, and he knows he has been set free? Should he not jerk or contort or roll on the floor? To me, such a healing could be so overpowering that it would necessarily affect him physiologically. Since we are not mind-body dualists like Descartes and all Cartesians, we would expect a freedom of the heart to be accompanied by something physical going on. But if minds are metaphysically detached from bodies, then of course when a mind is touched and healed of an addiction the body would not have a clue that something amazing and glorious and powerful has happened.]

But when God is in the house, it's not fleshly emotionalism. It's far beyond some talented soprano nailing a high B-flat at the pinnacle of her solo. It's not just a speaker revving up the audience. All of these things are fairly easy to manufacture by someone who has secular stage presence.

[Emotionalism? Let us reject that. Displays of emotion? All non-Cartesians should expect that. Were you healed of alcoholism might you smile, displaying some faint emotion? Might you actually be happy? Could you even be ecstatic and "embarrass" yourself in an overwhelming physical display of emotion? I think so. But if this pastor really wants God to show up and sets limits on the display of emotion I imagine God saying, "No..., that won't be possible."]

I'm talking instead about something that is real.

[Which implies: emotional responses are not real? How false because, again, Cartesian.]

I'm referring to what I read about on the day of dedication at the new temple, when "the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God" (2 Chron. 5:14).

[Well..., if the priests could not stand..., did they fall down?]

That's one of the best definitions of revival I can think of: the glory of God filling the house of God. The Lord invaded the ceremony and basically took over, so that men and women fell to their knees and faces in reverent worship.

[Yes..., but surely they did not fall to their knees as a result of making a logical choice like, "Hmmm., the glory of the Lord is filling the house of God, so I will assume the proper position." Rather, the priests COULD NOT STAND. They were overcome physically as well as emotionally. In Hebrew psychology, the two are not metaphysically distinct.]

The New Testament tells about a prayer meeting where, as the early disciples poured out their hearts to God, "the place where they had gathered to gether was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:31). Those people lacked screens and microphones and all kinds of things we enjoy today in church life, but they had the manifest presence of God.

[The place was "shaken." Sounds rather upsetting to me. Hearts might have been beating faster, bodies might have twitched just a bit..., ]

What if the Holy Spirit would come and shake out the sin, the apathy, the pride, the self-centeredness, the satisfaction with church as usual. We don't need a bigger facility or a larger budget nearly as much as we need the presence and power of a holy God.

[I'd like this too. I don't find it odd, should the Holy Spirit come and "shake out the sin," that a physical body might shake just a bit as this is happening.]

Through the years I have seen glimpses of what I'm trying to describe. I remember one morning in Jackson, Tennessee, we had enjoyed a wonderful time of worshiping the Lord through congregational singing. When the choir began its song, I don't know how to ex plain it except to say that God walked in the room. You could sense his presence. People, without any human prompting, began to stand with their eyes closed, worshiping the Lord. Some slipped quietly to the front of the church, knelt at the altar, and prayed. At the end of the service, several lost people gave their hearts to Christ and became believers. It was like a little touch of heaven on earth, and we all left wanting more. I also experienced these "heavenly invasions" during a 14-year pastorate in Gardendale, Alabama. In the mid-1990s, many people in that church began to fast, pray, and seek the Lord's presence. People started getting right with the Lord and with one another. God began to bless our worship services with his presence. The Lord knew he was welcome at any time to do anything he wanted among his people.

[Except for... falling, laughing, twitching, gold dust, and a host of other banned physiological manifestations that would embarrass the heck out of Descartes and many Enlightenmentized Evangelicals???]

After all, it is his church, isn't it? He graciously enthroned himself on our praises (Ps. 22:3) and met with his people who were hungry for him. Again, I want to be clear that I'm not talking about anything unbiblical or weird.

[Nothing "weird?" Does "weird" = "unbiblical?" If so, we're reading different Bibles.]

What I'm speaking about is the real deal found in Scripture—the manifest presence of God.

[The "real deal" found in Scripture has some pretty strange stuff in it...]

When he shows up, no true believer in Jesus has to ask, "Is this really God?" The Holy Spirit within us confirms the obvious: Jesus is here. I am convinced that one of the reasons so many people are turned off from the idea of church these days is that it is all so explainable.

[Ban physiological manifestations and it will all remain quite explainable.]

Too many churches are growing simply because they are well-oiled machines. Church programs, in and of themselves, will not change one person's life for eternity. Rather, what causes a thief to quit stealing from his employer, what causes divorced people to soften their hearts and remarry each other, what causes a man to stop using pornography, what causes a homosexual to turn away from his lifestyle, what causes grown men to reconcile after not speaking to each other in years is the touch of God.

If the Lord is truly our focal point, needy people can come into the house of God and feel his convicting power even during the time of singing, before the preacher ever starts. James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you."

We have to focus on him first of all. It does no good to reach out to human beings ahead of reaching out to God. That's backwards. When we get close to God, he moves close to us—and peo ple come running to get in on the action. A lot of churches in America have become like the Wal-Mart Supercenter down the street. They desire to be efficient, offer a dizzying array of products, and be smooth at the checkout lanes; but there's little if anything that transcends the ordinary. There's no awareness or focus on the presence of God in the place. It's as though the motto of some churches is "Come as you are; leave as you came." They haven't been touched in their soul by Jesus Christ. It makes me wonder if God can find anybody who wants to pay attention to him. God's people, not unbelievers, are the ones holding back revival.

God wants to return to his people and to his houses of worship in great power and glory. He is graciously knocking at the door of our churches. Are we willing to let him inside?

[Agreed!!]

Steve Gaines is pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church near Memphis, Tennessee.

The "Imposter God" of "The Golden Compass"

Here Christianity Today's "Golden Compass" review.

I picked up and am now reading the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, of which "Compass" is the first volume.

I also got two books analyzing HDM and Philip Pullman's views - Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials (Jossey-Bass), by Boston U. professor Donna Freitas, and Dark Matter: Shedding Light on Philip Pullman's Trilogy, His Dark Materials (IVP), by Tony Watkins.

A cursory look through these books reveals that the "God" Pullman kills off in HDM is an "imposter God" who is a hyper-authoritarian Medieval deity. It may be (I shall soon see) that the "God" in HDM that is raged against is an idea that I also reject.

Darren Wilson's Film to Premiere at Redeemer This Sunday Night!

Darren Wilson, and MHS graduate, is currently a professor in the communication arts department at Judson College, Elgin, Illinois.

Darren has traveled the world doing a documentary movie on what God is doing in the world today. I have seen the film already, and view it as an expression of the love of God manifested in many ways of compassion and healing. And, it has to me a "Michael Moore-ish" feel; that is, if Moore were a Jesus-follower then this is what his films would look like.

The film is one hour and 50 minutes long.

The world premier is here in Monroe: This Sunday, Dec. 9, 6:30 PM, Redeemer Fellowship Church, 5305 Evergreen, 734-242-5277.

For more information here is the film’s website.

Atheist Sunday Schools

Time magazine has an article on atheist Sunday schools - go here. The essay also mentions "Camp Quest," an kids summer camp for atheists. We have a Camp Quest in Michigan. I know a man who sent his grandchild to it.

The Golden Compass: A Parody

The movie "The Golden Compass" comes out this week. Here's a UK parody on youtube.