Wednesday, October 23, 2002

egalitarianism and complementarianism

Well I just realized that I consistently misspelled "egalitarian" on faithmaps.org and I'll fix this tonight, but the 'mappers have joined the conversation between egalitarians and complementarians. I've built out the anthropology section of faithmaps.org's theology articles page to include some articles from both perspectives.



Sunday, October 20, 2002

the Presbyterians

some of the 'mappers became interested in the various flavors of Presbyterians in the United States. I spent a few minutes this morning pulling together some summary resources for any interested.

Thursday, October 17, 2002

Bible on CD

No, I don't work for Amazon.com but....

For some time now I've been watching the cost of the entire Bible on CD. A few weeks ago I discovered that you can now get the whole Bible on 64 CDs for under $50 thru one of Amazon's ZShops. Go here to see the various ZShops that offer this! This particular version doesn't have music which I greatly prefer. Every chapter is a separate track so it's very easy to navigate.

I commute about 2 hours every day. For the first time in my life I've been listening to the Old Testament and have been finding it to be a rich experience. One interesting aspect of this is that listening "forces" me to go over sections that I tend to just quickly scan when reading. One thing that's struck me is how much geography is in the OT. I've been pulling out my atlas and truly getting an education (well, not while I'm driving, though I've thought about it!). My experience has been that it feels that I'm reading the OT for the first time! For some time I've said that the NT is more conducive to study while we are intended to let the OT wash over us in its story (as a general comment). Listening really facilitates this.



Monday, October 14, 2002

a just war theory evaluation of war on iraq

George Hunsinger holds the Hazel Thompson McCord Chair of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. Anyone who is concerned about the legitimacy of the United State's envisioned pre-emptive attack on Iraq must read his analysis of this decision from a just war perspective.

Monday, October 07, 2002

george bush

the text of the president's speech tonight.

iraq

i was in Ft Worth, TX this weekend speaking in the wedding of one of my best friends and had some down time. I wandered into a Barnes & Nobles and picked up The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq by Kenneth M. Pollack. It was interesting to me that he would take such a position as Dr. Pollack's resume is quite impressive, including sitting on the National Security Council from 1996 to 2001. He also correctly predicted Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.

Let me say that while I'm currently a adherent to just war theory, I have not been convinced at all up to this point that a pre-emptive attack on Iraq met this criteria. I spent lunch reading some of Pollack's articles that I was able to locate. Particularly helpful was his

Next Stop Baghdad?
that appeared in the March/April 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs. Irrespective of your opinion on this matter, you should read this article.

I also reviewed with interest Pollack's 26 September 2002 NY Times Op-Ed piece: Why Iraq Can't Be Deterred (free registration required).

A key component to Pollack's position is that Saddam's past reckless behavior does not suggest that he makes choices based on a reasonable chance of success. i.e. we err if we consider what would deter us in his situation will in fact deter him.

I would be most interested if anyone could provide me with similarly articulate articles that argue against invasion. I found Pollack's thoughts sobering.

The church has been discussing this matter, but perhaps not enough. I'm going to post the url for this post to the faithmaps discussion group and see if I can get a bit of discussion going. Please feel free to jump in.



Tuesday, October 01, 2002

jon gold

dr jon gold is a professor of philosophy and religion at West Liberty University in West Liberty, WVa. He's also a pastor and a sometimes frequent contributor to the faithmaps discussion group. jon has been one of the most critical contributors to the faithmappers' understanding of transpropositionality, a major topic of the group's discussion over the last year or so. His deep knowledge of philosophy - that comes only from decades of reading, study and teaching - and his substantial knowledge of the Scriptures and theology is guided by his deep love of Jesus Christ.

I've found jon's rare combination of knowledge sets and deep commitment to Jesus Christ so helpful that I've put together an index of some of his most significant posts to the faithmaps discussion group. The topics range from Aristotle to Heidegger to Wittgenstein and others. jon comments on phenomenology, epistemology, ontology, open theism, Calvinism and many other subjects besides. I do wish to stress that in no way is this an index to any kind of systematic treatment of these topics, but it is merely a guide to jon's sometimes passing, sometimes quite detailed, comments on these subjects. Nevertheless, for those willing to do a bit of spade work, there are riches to be found.

I am not one to differentiate between realtime and online friends. I consider jon a dear friend and appreciate his mind and spirit. I believe you will too.

Enjoy.

martin roth

martin has completed the transformation of his website to Martin Roth Christian Commentary. It's been recently the rage of blogsters to determine which blogs they've inspired. I'm not sure how many folks have started blogs because of martin, but one thing is for sure: many of us have met each other thru martin's "Semi-Definitive List of Christian Blogs", which eventually morphed into blogs4god. Thank you for being such a facilitator of online community, Martin.