“The producers of a Mormon version of the popular "Bachelor" television program were dealt a rude surprise when their lead man got down on his knee and proposed to all six finalists.” (story)
For those of you who just can’t ignore bubblewrap . . .
"Despite the fact that religion is always in the news, visits to religious websites in the U.S. are declining rapidly. They dropped over 30% within the last year, down 35% the last two years, while visits to online entertainment, in the form of video sites and social networks like MySpace and Facebook, continue to soar. Does the erosion of online interest in religion translate to a major shift away from spirituality? Are we losing our religion?" ("Looking for God Online")
“Critics must be more careful about their use of the terms topical and expositional when used of preaching. What some mean is that the preaching in the new churches is topical as done in liberal churches, where often the message is on a topic that may not even be found in the Bible or the preacher ignores the Bible. Again this may be true of a handful of new-model churches but by no means all. Many of us who teach preaching at a seminary level divide expository preaching into several areas, all of which are based on preaching the Bible. Three such areas are book exposition, biographical exposition, and topical exposition. Book exposition involves preaching through various books of the Bible. Biographical exposition is preaching the lives of biblical characters, based on what the text says about them. And topical exposition is preaching on various topics addressed in Scripture, for example, what the Bible says about worry, money, abortion, capital punishment, and such theological topics as angels, salvation, sin, the Trinity, and so on. Thus it is okay to preach a topical sermon, as long as it is topical exposition. How else might we preach systematic or biblical theology or some other subject of the Bible?” (Aubrey Malphurs)
Cathy Lynn Grossman's recent USA Today article on William Young's surprise bestseller The Shack is her second in a month, this one shifting attention to the long-developing and growing backlash against the book coming from a number of influential voices concerned about the book's implicit theological claims.
“The argument that government is often a flawed instrument to improve social conditions has merit. There are limits to take-a-number-and-wait bureaucratic compassion -- and tremendous advantages to the commitment and sacrificial love of volunteers. Which is precisely why compassionate conservatism looks first to the expansion of private, community responses to poverty and need. But the scale of these needs is sometimes overwhelming. Private compassion cannot replace Medicaid or provide AIDS drugs to millions of people in Africa for the rest of their lives. In these cases, a role for government is necessary and compassionate -- the expression of conservative commitments to the general welfare and the value of every human life.” (Michael Gerson)
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