3.22.2006


I have the pleasure and honor of, yet again, being able to host the weekly Christian Carnival (more info, here). Unfortunately, with work as it is, I won't be able to do the beautiful categorization that so many often contrive to add flavor to the CC, but I've done my best to throw in a comment here or there. Without further adieu...

From Stingray: a blog for salty Christians, Christians and homosexuality: If you're a Christian, let God use you to minister to and love homosexuals, not to write them off as beyond God's help. Yes, the sin is gross but is it any more gross than Paul having Christians murdered or John Newton -— the writer of the song "Amazing Grace" - having participated in the slave trade? There is no sin that is too big for God to forgive and no sinner that is beyond hope.
(Editor's note: because I really appreciated Michael's post, as a single Christian guy living in NYC - around a lot of homosexual men, he gets thprivilegege of two posts in the CC this week. I think this first one was supposed to be posted last week, as it was the first I received this week, and I later received a different one from him, below...)

What do country music, a Pastor's sabbatical, and Revelation chapter 15 have in common? I Hope You Dance, on Vegetable Soup. (FireFox users - you may need IE to see this site, as I did).

Leo of Diary of a City Parishioner talks on Vital and Important Matters - a thought on one thing needful.

Martin's entry for the week is "Is evolution "unguided?"." I discuss a claim that Intelligent Design advocates added the word, "unguided," to a description of the process of evolution to the Kansas Science Standards, against the objections of other scientists. Oh yeah, Martin's blog is Sun and Shield.

Catez at Allthings2all shares with us Share the Love: Demographics and Some Thoughts. After reading 197 blogs nominated in the Share the Love Blog Awards, Catez found some very interesting groupings of religious and spiritual beliefs, and one major theme that the blogs had in common. She also continues some of the discussion that has been relevant to Christian womens blogging recently.

From Dadmanly, Light & Darkness (Part Three). In the previous parts of this three part study, I explored the context within which Light and Bushel imagery is presented in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. In this third and final part, I look at the Gospel of Luke.

Mark Olson at Pseudo-Polymath presents Help! with Sunday Schooling - I'm seeking assistance from the God blogs or "Calling all God Bloggers", Mayday!
(Editor's Note: As the guy who leads the Sr. High group in their weekly lesson-time at my church, I can highly recommend the material we use - thanks to DASH Student Leadership - out of Andy Stanley's church in Atlanta. They (Andy and Stuart Hall) wrote a book that was transformational to our youth ministry - The Seven Checkpoints. Also, a number of years ago I read A Purpose Driven Youth Ministry (you can probably guess where this came from) - and found it quite helpful. Hope this helps you - feel free to contact me if you'd like more info.)

Kenny Pearce presents and essay entitled "Tradition as the 'Platonic Form' of Christian Faith and Practice in Orthodoxy", representing a Protestant philosophy student's attempt to understand the concept of (capital T) Tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church. As the title suggests, Kenny believes that the best way to understand this idea is by use of Plato's theory of forms.

Are our emotions a test of our faith? Dory, of Wittenberg Gate argues that faith still abides, even during our darkest hours in Cold Emotions and Burning Faith.

From Funky Dung at Ales Rarus - Investigating NFP: Pius XII -
This is the third post in my series on natural family planning (NFP). It focuses on addresses given by Pope Pius XII.
(Editor's note: I have some good friends from my college days who recently got married. Apparently they hail from an NFP perspective. They were pregnant a couple weeks later. I was 27 when I started learning about NFP - wow.)

Chris at Welcome to the Fallout presents Pitchers and Predestination. Underlying assumptions matter when it comes to doctrinal debates.

Dave from Disciple's Journal gives us Weekly blog roundup, circa 1545: A tongue-in-cheek look at what Reformation-era bloggers might have been saying in their distinctive styles. It's deja vu all over again . . .

Jeremy Pierce at Parableman presents Adam Knew His Wife. This post reflects on some difficulties in translating the phrase traditionally rendered "Adam knew his wife".

In her first CC submission, Carol at She Lives takes a look at dumb laws still on the books. She Follows Dumb Laws because of God'’s perfect sovereignty. He established the authorities that govern us, so by obeying their dumb laws we obey Him as well.
(Editor's note - Welcome, Carol! We think you'll like it here.)

Big Cajun Man, at Canadian Financial Rants, presents Sunday: Lent and Saint Patrick's Day. Saint Patrick's day revelry in the middle of Lent? Hmmm....how does a Christian reconcile these two on the same day?

Laura at Pursuing Holiness presents Bravery? A news article reported that "Jessica Simpson'’s staunchly Christian mother Tina has praised the singer for filing for divorce from Nick Lachey, insisting ending a marriage takes a lot of bravery." Bravery is what it takes to stay in a marriage, not to end one, and one study shows that staying is the smart thing to do for most people.
(Editor's note: thanks for pointing this out, Laura)

Michael McCullough at Stingray: a blog for salty Christians presents Church persecution and growth in China. Some estimate that there are 90 million Christians in China. Are there 90 million believers in the United States? Maybe, and maybe not.

Jan at The View From Her reminds us to reach out and touch someone.
(Editor's note: Awesome post, Jan. Again, as a single guy in NYC, where everyone's way too cool to need anyone else...I know the need of touch. Going for months on end with literally nothing can be, well, tough. Anyway, if we ever cross paths, I'll give you an awesome side-hug.)

Moment of Silence in Schools: Personally, which might surprise you, I am not for verbal prayer in school! But what I DON'T have a problem with, is the Moment of Silence. I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. It is not infringing at all! The child can do as they wish with that moment. Even if it is spent on nothing more than thinking about they can't wait to get home and ride their bike! By Lisa at CrossBLogging.com.

Kim C at Life in a Shoe: the methods and madness of one mother of 7 presents Thoughts on Beatitudes & memorization.
(Editor's note: Homeschooling Mother Award! Wow. My mom homeschooled 6, meanwhile Kim's working on her 8th AND keeping a blog AND submitting to CC. God must have given this woman some moxie.)
(Editor's note 2: I memorized the SOTM last year, as one of my annual goals. The key for me was daily repetitipreferablyably at the same point in the day - all it took was the roughly 10 minutes I spent on the subway, 5 days a week.)

What kind of twisted mind can loose associate Jack Bauer interrogating a terrorist with John Piper's theology? Find out for yourself by reading the post Everyone Is For Sale at Light along the Journey - by John.

Ed at Attention Span gives us "What's Wrong With Church - Club Mentality": Continuing his series, "What Wrong With the Church?" rev-ed at Attention Span takes on one of the often unrecognized problems at local churches -- "Club Mentality."

A Penitent Blogger shares The cost of unforgiveness - A reflection on our desperate need to be forgiving.
(Editor's note: Nice job! We live in a world full of people that think they know what love is yet practice and know so little forgiveness!)

Over at dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos theophilos, On the Third Anniversity - Richard looks back and post words written three and half years ago.

That's it...so far. Please note that, due to my hectic work schedule, I am posting the Carnival roughly 3 hours ahead of the final submission deadline. This is because I simply will not have any time to myself between now and at least tomorrow evening, due to some extreme work circumstances (well...let's hope they're extreme, for now...). While I take this break to throw up the CC, I can literally hear the work piling up. Oy.

I will be posting any further entries I receive for this week's carnival, below, at some point tomorrow evening, if possible. I'd like to particularly thank all the wonderful bloggers who sent me theirs ahead of time and made this CC possible here at my humble, bumbling blog.

Late Entry

Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength presents St. Paul to the factions in the church - I was just struck by how well Paul's comments to the factions in Corinth still speak to the factions today. It's almost the same factions. Spooky. (Don't we ever learn?)

3 comments:

Catez said...

Thanks David - nice job!

Carol said...

Thank you so much for hosting. I appreciate the time you took.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your kindness, David. I'm new to blog carnivals so if I happen to send you 2 posts in the same week again, please don't be too tough on me.

I enjoy your blog and I'm adding it to my blogroll this evening.

Best regards,

-Michael McCullough