Off to prison (ministry)

Matthew 25:36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
See the follow up to this post here.
I’ll be volunteering at a Kairos Ministry weekend at a Texas prison next month.   It is sort of like a Walk to Emmaus [...]

Off to prison (ministry)

Matthew 25:36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
I’ll be volunteering at a Kairos Ministry weekend at a Texas prison next month.   It is sort of like a Walk to Emmaus or Cursillo event for prisoners. 
Well-organized and well-trained [...]

Weekly roundup

Here’s a cool evangelism site called StreetFishing.   They even have audio recordings of actual discussions that can give you ideas on conversation starters,  common questions, how to respond to objections, etc.
Carter and Clinton’s New Baptist Covenant scam – why anyone would look to them for theological leadership is beyond me.   This is the same Carter [...]

Random thoughts on gay sheep, counseling for “homophobia” and barbeque

I am not as well read as I thought, because I didn’t learn about the gay sheep controversy until last week.  That’s a pretty good trick to seriously offend the gay lobby and PETA at the same time. 
Isn’t it a logical thing for a breeder to want to maximize the amount of rams who want to [...]

A hypothetical dilemma

Here’s a hypothetical situation to consider: If a genetic predisposition to homosexuality were proved and it could identified in utero (i.e., in an unborn child), would your position on abortion change in either direction?  Keep in mind that this may be a reality one day.
A friend of mine is pro-choice (an escort at Planned Parenthood, no [...]

Do you know Roe?

Everyone should take the Roe v. Wade IQ test – a quick 12 questions to see how much you really know about the law.  Based on surveys it appears that misunderstandings abound.  Many people have no idea what Roe really means to the abortion debate.
Full disclosure: I got 11 out of 12, and shouldn’t have [...]

“Won’t somebody please think of the children!”

Helen Lovejoy, the minister’s wife on The Simpsons, often shrieks the title of this post as a catch-all phrase.  It reminds me of the Poverty Bait-and-Switch sometimes used by some liberals to change the subject when they are losing a debate (“Won’t somebody please think of the poor!”). 
Their basic reasoning is that the Bible says more [...]

Weekly roundup

Angry Apostles of Atheism Attack – terrific analysis by Ben Witherington 
Why it is more important to be negative than positive when sharing the Gospel.  Somebody pass this along to Joel.
A few reasons an evolutionary origin of life is impossible
More media bias from the NY Times.  In a blatant anti-marriage piece they trumpeted that the majority of women live [...]

Internet filters

I strongly encourage people to use Internet filters.  We use BSafe Online.  Yes, it can be annoying when you have to enter the password for sites you know are benign, but it is worth it. 
I simply can’t understand how any caring parents would give their kids unlimited access to the Internet.  The best illustration I have [...]

Book review – Pontius Pilate

Pontius Pilate was another terrific piece of historical fiction by Paul L. Maier.  As noted in my comments on another one of his books, The Flames of Rome, Maier is very disciplined with his rules for historical fiction: No proper names are invented, nothing knowingly contradicts historical facts and great care is exercised to fill in [...]

Does it matter if we evolved?

Some people – Christians included - think that it doesn’t matter if Darwinism is true.   I think there are huge ramifications if it is true. 
If Darwinism is true, then there is no purpose or meaning to life, there is no morality, there’s no qualitative difference between humans and animals, there’s no life after death, and there’s no [...]

Love in the Book of Acts

This is a rerun from 2007.
How many times do you think the word love is mentioned in the Book of Acts?  Before you answer, here are a few Acts facts to consider:

Acts has 28 chapters (the average book in the Bible has 18)
Acts chronicles the spread of the early church over nearly 30 years, from Jesus’ [...]

The Impossible Faith

Or, How Not To Start An Ancient Religion.  The author provides a list of issues that ”critics must deal with in explaining why Christianity succeeded where it should have clearly failed or died out.”  It is a thorough and clever way to address objections to Christianity.  It shows just how unique Christianity is and how unlikely [...]

Weekly roundup

An estimated 250 million Christians will be persecuted in 2007.  Persecution is growing fastest in “religion of peace” countries. 
Important tips from Family Life Today on avoiding emotional adultery.  Also see Wishing He Were Your Husband.
Interesting pro-life site: Klan Parenthood.  Is it a little over the top?  Perhaps.  But so is the murder of the unborn. 
Great editorial by [...]

Quote of the day: “I thought creationists were monsters, until I married one”

Loving the enemy is an interesting Newsweek article by someone candidly confessing that she had unfairly stereotyped those who believe God created the universe. 

Before Rob, I hadn’t known any creationists. I assumed that they were people who believed in the Bible more than in scientific data, probably out of stupidity. Whenever I imagined what [...]

Pro-choice and pro-slavery reasoning

A couple readers were offended by one of the points in the Nancy Pelosi and bad pro-abortion reasoning post, so I thought I would clarify and expand on those thoughts.  Here is the offending section:
Ms. Pelosi also uses this poor reasoning to defend abortion:
“If you don’t want an abortion, you don’t believe in it, [then] [...]