Around the Web

The Parchment and Pen is holding the Great Trinity debate between Rob Bowman and Dave Burke.  I've not had a chance to follow it very closely but it looks very good. 

Speaking of debates my former co-worker Chuck Wiese has invited someone to a "debate and cook off" with him on the subject of Lutheranism vs. Calvinism. A little debate followed by a "grilling competition" is what he's proposing.   And while not quite a debate my friend Paul Adams did a review of the book The Making of an Atheist.  The review sparked quite a conversation/debate between Paul and the "Arizona Atheist."  The dialog is a great example of the possibility of a debate being conducted in a civil manner without all the nasty pejoratives that many think they have to resort to.  The atheist made this comment on his blog:  "It's so nice to have a discussion with a theist who is polite. I haven't experienced that much the last few years being on Amazon.com and all with my few detractors throwing out insults and put-downs every other sentence."  This is what I was referring to when I talked about atheists following the example of Antony Flew over the likes of Richard Dawkins. 

Kevin DeYoung read a fascinating paper on the subject of the impassibility of God.  I've noted before that I remain one of a dying breed that still think the doctrine has merit if it is properly formulated and understood. 

I think more than enough has been said about Bruce Waltke and evolution and John Piper inviting Rick Warren to speak.  Strong feelings abound and there are endless comments on the pros and cons of both.

If you like analytic theology read the review by Paul Helm of Oliver Crisp's book God Incarnate.  Helm's review made my synapses fire like the Fourth of July. 

Finally, Calvinists will be intrigued, and maybe a little irritated, at William Lane Craig's latest answer to the question of the week which involved answering why "the mass amounts of calvinists" who are apparently "incredibly intelligent and trustworthy Christian leaders" seem to "stick their head in the sand when it comes to the problem of evil" when Molinism is so available and makes such logical sense.

Around the Web

Matthew Lee Anderson from First Thoughts has a humorous post on Playing the (a) Theological Mystery Card.  Here's his list of who plays the "mystery card" and on what subject:

•Calvinists: the existence of human responsibility
•Arminians: the existence of divine sovereignty over salvation
•Roman Catholics: the simultaneous presence of Christ’ body in the Eucharist and in Heaven
•Anglo-Catholics: their relationship to the Reformation
•Naturalists: consciousness and the existence of free will
•Eastern Orthodox: I’m pretty sure this is the only card they play with.
•Lutherans: how (and that!) sanctification happens
•Wesleyans: why sanctification doesn’t happen
•Baptists: the working of the Holy Spirit
•Pentecostals: the working of anything else
•Dispensationalists: the Old Testament

Michael Wittmer is doing a series of posts on Brian McLaren's new book A New Kind of Christianity.  Some have complained that his tone is too harsh.  I disagree.  Considering the seriousness of what is at stake he may not be strong enough.  But I think he's found a good balance.  I have not read McLaren's book yet but plan to.  But if half of what Wittmer says is true I am deeply disturbed.  Here's just a sample from his most recent post:

"Brian begins this section by admitting that he has a big problem. It helped his new kind of Christianity to assert that the Bible is our cultural library rather than authoritative constitution, but he still has to wrestle with the fact that this library contains many bloody books. In Brian’s words, he needs a way to deal with the numerous 'violent images, cruel images, [and] un-Christlike images' of God that are found in the Bible."

"Most troubling is the God who appears in the Noah narrative. Brian complains that 'a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship. How can you ask your children—or nonchurch colleagues and neighbors—to honor a deity so uncreative, overreactive, and utterly capricious regarding life?'"

Tyndale has a new website and is offering an opportunity to win some free books.

Scot McKnight has resolved the mystery of dinosaur extinction. 

Craig Blomberg has done a review of Philip Payne's book Man and Women, One in Christ to which Payne has responded.  The exchange is very interesting.  Paul Adams continues his own review of Payne's book.

Koinonia is offering another blog tour.  This time it's on the new book Your Church is Too Small by John Armstrong. I've done a few of these already and have really enjoyed them.

Finally, we have Alvin Plantinga providing a modal argument against the current "rage" of viewing human nature in purely materialist terms, that is, that humans are nothing more than their brains or bodies.  Paul Adams featured it on his blog.  I had to watch it a couple of times to clearly understand Plantinga's point. 

Around the Web

Should Mother Theresa be on a stamp?  The United States Post Office was going to do it (and still may as near as I can tell) but ran into objections from the Freedom from Religion Foundation.  Joe Carter from First Things blog says technically they may be right by the letter of the law but the law is a stupid one. 

Scot McKnight asked his readers what they thought of the State of the Union address by President Obama.  The responses were unusually negative for his blog. 

Jeff from the Scripture Zealot alerts us to a new website coming from Tyndale.  This surprised me a lot since I had just met with my Tyndale rep this week and he said nothing about it.  Shame on you Gary. 

John Piper gives us a peek at his writing projects for 2010 and says he will be at this year's Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) Conference and he will be on a panel with N. T. Wright and Frank Thielman discussing justification by faith!  I'm giving serious thought to going.  

Kevin DeYoung has a wonderful post on the "Fetid Pool" of self promotion.  For similar thoughts see the post by Bruce Little at the Evangelical Philosophical Society blog. 

My friend Paul Adams continues his review of Philip Payne's book Man and Woman, One in Christ.  You'll find part five here where he outlines Payne's argument that 1 Cor. 14:34-35 is an interpolation. 

Just a reminder that our new website will be coming in February.  As soon as it's up I'll be sure to let you know. 

Around the Web

I'm borrowing this idea from Jeff at the Scripture Zealot.  From time to time he has a post entitled "Around the Web" (He actually just did one yesterday.  I had this written prior to Sunday but scheduled it for release today.  So he beat me by a day!) where he links various items of interest.  I've always enjoyed these and have wanted to do one myself.  Thanks for the idea Jeff.  I hope you don't mind me plagiarizing your title.  If you'd like I can rename my posts to something different. If I do this half as well as you do I will be happy.  These aren't necessarily new they are just items I've either recently discovered or known about for some time but have not had time to do a post on them. 

At First Things I found an interesting, and somewhat disturbing, article called "Are Plants Ethical Beings?"  I'm not at all ready to start talking about the rights of broccoli. 

Mike Wittmer reminds us that the intellectual objections of unbelievers are really simply a smokescreen for their unwillingness to submit to the authority of God.  He says, "Sinners know that they are in trouble with God, and so they raise 'technical difficulties' about God to avoid his claims upon their life." 

My friend Paul Adams has been doing a series of reviews on a new release from Zondervan by Philip B. Payne called Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul's Letters.  To date he has three entries: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. 

William Lane Craig has a Reasonable Faith Podcast on "More Questions on the Resurrection." (dated 2010/01/04) In particular, I enjoyed his clarification of the "myth growth rate" and the resurrection.  It is commonly alleged that myths take a loooong time to develop and there was insufficient time for such myths to develop around Christ.  A. N. Sherwin-White is often quoted to support this. The questioner cited the myths that developed around Alexander the Great and noted that it didn't take long at all for those myths to develop.  Craig clarifies that what Sherwin-White actually said, using Herodotus as an example, is "that even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core of the oral tradition." (190, emphasis mine.  Page number is to Sherwin-White's book.) The distinction is an important one. 

Scot McKnight has given high praise to Lynn Cochick's new book Women in the World of Earliest Christians from Baker Academic.  He says this "will become the standard for all study of the social location of women in the earliest Christian churches. This is an exceptional book and it will replace Ben Witherington's (now) twenty-some year old study."

Finally, Darrell Bock informs us of the recent Archeological discovery of a house in Nazareth which dates back to the time of Jesus.  You can find the inital report here.