Well, the guys at AB417 were kind enough to let me join their societal think tank, so of course I had to pony up a 2,000-word essay for the new newsletter.
My essay is a response of sorts to a post on Scott Greider’s blog in which he criticizes a local Uno’s Pizzaria for looking like an old urban building but actually being a new suburban building.
I agree with Scott’s concerns, but offer a different perspective:
But I contend there is something real behind this fake authenticity, something that I’d say is good and decent. And those who want to preserve and recapture our city’s downtown as a place of destination and a true city center should look to this fake authenticity as a source of hope.
“Our people don’t so much need to have their heads stored as to have their hearts touched and they stand in the greatest need of that sort of preaching that has the greatest tendency to do this.”
As always, my dear family gave me a great Father’s Day, with lots of food and goodies. Here are some photos. You can click on the small ones to see them larger.
If I had to recommend only one Piper book, this would be it. In fact, what’s always been great about Piper’s ministry is how unselfish it is. For example, the entire text of “Desiring God” is online, and in an easy-to-read-online format.
Note that the subtitle for “Desiring God” is “Meditations of a Christian Hedonist.” In the book’s introduction, Piper states five convictions upon which he builds his philosophy of Christian Hedonism:
The longing to be happy is a universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful.
We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy, as though it were a bad impulse. Instead we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction.
The deepest and most enduring happiness is found only in God.
The happiness we find in God reaches its consummation when it is shared with others in the manifold ways of love.
To the extent we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure, we fail to honor God and love people. Or, to put it positively: the pursuit of pleasure is a necessary part of all worship and virtue. That is, The chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying him forever.
It’s a great book that cannot be too highly recommended.
Oh, and their servers have been very, very busy, so you may want to wait and order later in the evening or early in the morning.
I recently found this photo from a trip to Wheeling’s Good Zoo in September 2005. I liked it and thought others might, too.
Sarita’s at the top of one of those old concrete climbing tubes that had holes in them that always reminded me of swiss cheese. Anyone know what I’m even talking about?
Andrew Osenga is one of the newer members of excellent Christian band Caedmon’s Call, but he’s been putting out music on his own for quite a while.
Now, on his web site, he offers a six-song fan-inspired EP for download:
This is an acoustic EP I recorded in the early Summer of 2007. All the songs are written from ideas submitted by fans and supporters of my music. The download contains the six MP3
When you’re a judge for a talent contest, and you ask someone why he’s there, and he responds, “To sing opera,” that is not normally a good sign.
Here is Paul Potts, a cell phone salesman, in “Britain’s Got Talent.” Especially watch the face of Simon Cowell, most well known in the U.S. for his role on “American Idol.”
But since I had in my possession an Anchor Room gift certificate, I thought it was a dandy time to pick up a copy.
As David Wayne says in his review that captured my attention:
The view that many Christians have is that, after this life, our souls go to heaven and we walk streets of gold, wearing white robes and singing hymns for eternity. What Marshall does is show that our eternal destiny may in fact look a bit more like our current earthly existence than we realize.
Marshall correctly brings out the biblical teaching that the created order is basically good, and therefore it can be embraced. Sin is not the essence of the creation, sin is an imposter.
Because many Christians have wrongly interpreted Biblical passages on the world and worldliness we have adopted an attitude that sees this world as something evil at worst, or unnecessary at best. Either way, this world and this earth and this creation are to be avoided or endured until the time when we will be freed from all of it.
Well, the guys at AB417 were kind enough to let me join their societal think tank, so of course I had to pony up a 2,000-word essay for the new newsletter.
Until midnight on Thursday, every book and study guide at 
Ever since I read a review of 
