Everything That's On My Mind

If you grew up in the evangelical church during the '70s as I did, Brother Andrew's autobiography God's Smuggler was unofficial required reading. In case you've never read it, it tells the story of Brother Andrew's efforts smuggling bibles into communist countries during the Iron Curtain days of the '60s. Needless to say when it comes to passion for the Gospel and the courage to do something about it, his credentials are flawless. That's why when he talks about a Christian response to radical Islam in Christianity Today, I take notice. I highly recommend taking some time to meditate on this article. What should a true Christ-centered approach to radical Islam look like?

Ben Witherington seems to be on a pilgrimage of sorts this summer. His recent post about the city of Ephesus is excellent. It must be nice to have summers off.

Scot McKnight's series "Letters to Emerging Christians" has been full of interesting nuggets. The most recent letter addresses how to explain the Gospel simply and accurately.I like his Kingdom focus. Rick Meigs (the Blind Beggar) posted on a similar topic recently.

Earl Creps recently wrote a very convicting piece entitled Landfill Repentance.

Mark Roberts recently had the opportunity to debate Christopher Hitchens, author of the recent book god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything on Hugh Hewitt's podcast. He's been elaborating in a series on his blog.

Finally, Angie sent me this link. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Probably both. Yikes!

Somebody suggested I put the video illustration from Sunday's message up on YouTube. I'm no lawyer but I think this qualifies under Fair Use copyright law, so here it is:

David Wayne's post this morning really struck me, I think I know how he feels.

Yes, I haven't been writing much on the blog recently. I have at least a half dozen half-written entries in Windows Live Writer at the moment, most of which are now too dated to be worth finishing. I do have a series in the works, hopefully I'll get it started soon.

Some people have far too much time on their hands. OK, so I actually did waste 10 minutes of my time watching this whole video, but I'm sure it took much longer than that to create. The scary thing is, I recognized most of these movies.

HT: FilmChat

Once again Scot McKnight simply knocks one out of the ballpark, this time in a post on Christianity Today's Out of Ur blog. Be sure to read the comments, too. Good stuff.

David Wayne, the Jolly Blogger, has written a few posts recently that tie in nicely to our current Sunday series, "Loving Like Jesus". I thought I'd pass them along.

Good Friday Christianity vs. A Christianity that Condemns

Why We Haven't Changed the World

David is one of the more thoughtful and gracious "Godbloggers" out there, yet he's not above stirring the pot every now and then. My kind of guy.

As a child growing up in the 70's, I was addicted to ABC's Wide World of Sports. Every Saturday afternoon I would marvel at the exploits of people like Muhammad Ali, Richard Petty, and Franz Klammer. Jim McKay's voice still echoes in my head: "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat".

While in the show's intro the "agony of defeat" was personified by little-known ski jumper Vinko Bogataj (yes, I had to look it up), I always thought that agony was most accurately portrayed by one man: Evel Knievel. It seemed like every week he was on the show performing some ridiculous motorcycle stunt; often with very painful results. He was anything but a role model, even after he stopped performing. Assault and battery, womanizing, substance abuse, weapons charges, and I'm sure much more I'm not aware of.

I'm always a little hesitant to trumpet celebrity conversions. It seems to pander to our celebrity-obsessed society. Celebrity conversions are no more significant than any other. Yet I know that such people can be used by God in unique ways to spread the gospel. Evel is apparently the latest example of someone God has chosen to use in such ways. On Palm Sunday, Evel publicly confessed his faith in Christ at the Crystal Cathedral in California, and inspired hundreds to follow his example. Like any other new believer Evel is going to have his victories and his struggles as he grows in Christ, but I pray God continues to use him in such powerful ways.

UPDATE: Apparently, not everyone can get to the Christianity Today article I linked to above. Here's another article on the same event.