Strong Christian worldview without mentioning Jesus that tells a story about no greater love has any person than to give up his or her life for his or her neighbor, with very strong moral elements such as kindness, courtesy, compassion and all the other cardinal virtues extolled
[. . .]

Yet sometimes they're unintentionally, simplistically comical in directly taking “inventory” of a film's moments.

[. . .] no sex but robots hold hands [. . .]

I think that about sums it up.

• What makes the Bible distinct from other “sacred” religious texts?


• How were the 66 books approved into the canon of Scripture?


• What about the Bible’s “deleted scenes,” such as Jesus and the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John?


• What do Christians do with the Old Testament law codes?


• What is Biblical inerrancy, and how do we deal with professing Christians who deny it?


• What are the effects, good and bad, of postmodernism on the Church?


• How do we deal with Christians who deny the doctrines of Grace and instead hold to a more human-effort-centered “semi-Pelagian” idea of salvation?


• What role should the Word of God play in our artistic and creative endeavors?

Worshiping John Piper. What a bitter irony. Piper seems aware of the problem. “The test of whether you are seeing and savoring Christ or humanly drawn to me will now be put to the test,” Piper told his congregation when I visited shortly before he left on sabbatical. “My prayer and hope is that you will show in these next five months that your allegiance is not primarily to me.

2. Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)

Thus far I've only skimmed through this book, by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, but it's apparent to me that they are trying to beat the ”emergent church“ types at their own game. This isn't a negative reaction, either — the book cover is colorful, and readers will also find occasional grayish illustrations inside, accompanying text that's easy-to-read in both style and substance. The authors are quoting trendy ”emergent“ dudes such as Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and what's-his-name who wrote Blue Like Jazz — Donald Miller. Their style is very informal, similar to the ”emergent“ dudes, and similar to my attempt in the last sentence when I wrote ”what's-his-name“ (see, I can do it too). And they're directly presenting doctrine and defense for Jesus Christ and real Truth in Christendom.

Young, Restless, Reformed is a relatively short book; Not Emergent is about 40 percent longer. Methinks each one of these, but perhaps particularly the latter, will result in a book review, here and perhaps even elsewhere.



3. For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word

This is volume 1, and Carson had apparently just had volume 2 published. It was available and recommended at New Attitude; however, I had figured that I might as well purchase the first one first, then work my way around to the second.

That may take about a year, because this is a one-year devotional sort of book, with 365 short articles by Carson to accompany a daily schedule for Scripture reading. However, I haven't yet tried it for today — perhaps I will. Today's selection, then, would be Deuteronomy 13 - 14, Psalms 99 - 101, Isaiah 41 and Revelation 11. In what order, though, are these? The book's schedule in January starts with Genesis, Matthew, Ezra and Acts. Perhaps I'll find out when I begin following the schedule and reading the articles, which should be soon. Carson seems to base his mini-essays either, on the Old Testament selection, and some on the New, again, seeming (thus far) to be in no particular order.



Meanwhile ...

Throughout the past several days I've dabbled back into my ”big blue book," an older-edition copy of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. I've also read a few chapters into The Tragedy of American Compassion, Marvin Olasky's nonfiction about historical Western solutions to societal poverty problems compared with today's flawed and impersonal approaches.

Methinks more discipline is in order: surely I should be picking one book and sticking with it to the end. ... However, even the two editors say they don't expect most readers to burn through Recovering from cover to cover (which I already have once, to some extent).

At the same time, I'm continuing review of notes from the New Attitude conference itself, for which I took adequate notes — off and on throughout that four-day event, that is.

Author/pastor/Sovereign Grace Ministries leader CJ Mahaney, for example, is somewhat (and positively) repetitious in his messages. He — can — be — speaking very slowly — drawing out a point ...

Andthensuddenlyhe'sworkedupandtalkingrapidlyandcausing anote-taker'stypingfingerstogetveryannoyedveryfast.

And with John Piper — well, even a fast typist might as well give up sometimes. Plus, he's just plain fun to watch.

Therefore, I have a combination of typed notes, handwritten notes, and notes yet-to-be-written while I actually re-listen to the messages, which are available here in free MP3s anyway. But I've learned so much all over again simply by reviewing them for myself, and adapting them into written forms that approximate articles. Even only Al Mohler's material — which is due to be posted sometime this week — is worth the effort.