Between Two Worlds

From Blaise Pascal:

When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on board ship. When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops, he shows up the others who are rushing on by acting as a fixed point.

Pascal, Pensees, ed. Alban Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin, 1966), 699/382, p. 247

My friend Eric Schumacher has written a Christmas hymn entitled "He Is Altogether Lovely." It was written to be sung to the tune Hyfrydol ("Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus"), and is based upon Jonathan Edwards' 1736 sermon "The Excellency of Christ," the subject of which was: "There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ," such as:

• Lion and Lamb
• infinite highness and low condescension
• infinite justice and infinite grace
• infinite glory and lowest humility
• infinite majesty and transcendent meekness
• equality to God and deepest reverence to God
• infinite worthiness of good and greatest patience in suffering
• supreme dominion over heaven and earth and a spirit of obedience
• absolute sovereignty and perfect resignation
• self-sufficiency and entire trust and dependence upon God
• Judge and Savior

Eric's hymn was written to be sung to the tune Hyfrydol ("Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus"). Enjoy.

He Is Altogether Lovely

He is altogether lovely,
Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord.
We delight to see His glory
As unfolded in His Word.
In one person are conjoining
Attributes diverse and grand.
The eternal God and Maker,
In the flesh and form of man.

High, we see the Lion of Judah
Coming in His might to reign.
Low, we see Him condescending
As the Lamb who would be slain.
Perfect justice, endless glory,
And unrivaled majesty
Meet transcendent grace and meekness,
Perfect in humility.

One and equal with the Father,
Absolute in sov'reignty,
He resigns in full submission;
Deepest rev'rence bends His knee.
He, whose is supreme dominion,
Does obey His Father's will.
He, the self-sufficient fountain,
Trusts in God His needs to fill.

He is worthy of all honor.
He is worthy of all praise.
Yet with patience in His suff'rings,
No complaint do His lips raise.
He, our Judge, the Lion of Judah,
Is our Savior and God's Lamb.
He is altogether lovely,
Jesus Christ, the great I AM!

Text: Eric Schumacher
Tune: HYFRYDOL, 8.7.8.7.D., Rowland H. Prichard (1811-1887)

(c) 2004, Eric Schumacher. Permission granted to reproduce for temporary use in worship services. All other duplication requires the permission of the author.

CNN reports:

(CNN) -- Missouri authorities issued an Amber Alert for an infant who may have survived after a woman was slain and a fetus removed from her body.

Bobbi Jo Stinnett, who was eight months' pregnant, was killed Thursday afternoon in her home in Skidmore in northwestern Missouri, the Nodaway County Sheriff's Department said.

The initial Amber Alert said that "the fetus was extracted from the victim."

A statement from the sheriff's department said the fetus was removed by the same "person or persons" who killed Stinnett.

Authorities said Stinnett was killed at around 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET).

The alert said that the suspect "has blond hair and [is] possibly driving a red vehicle."

It advised people to look for bloody clothing or towels and said the infant could have health issues and would have a freshly cut umbilical cord if alive.

Authorities said that Stinnett was a white woman and the offspring also was believed to be a white female.

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Feel free to leave comments below about the implications this sort of thing has for the abortion debate.

Update: Amazingly, the baby has been found alive and healthy. Sheriff Ben Espey said: "The child is probably going to be okay." Thank God.

According to Zondervan's website:

Rick Warren will be a guest this Friday on FOX TV's The O'Reilly Factor. Host Bill O'Reilly will interview Rev. Warren on the phenomenal success of his book, The Purpose-Driven Life, which has sold more than 20 million copies and appeared on The New York Times bestseller list for 97 consecutive weeks. The show airs at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Mary Eberstadt is the author of Home-Alone America, a book which seeks "to shed light on one of the fundamental changes of our time: the ongoing, massive, and historically unprecedented experiment in family-child separaration in which the United States and most other advanced societies are now engaged."

For more on this, see Al Mohler's review, Rich Lowry's review, and National Review's interview with Eberstadt.

Christianity Today says that Leonardo DiCaprio "delivers the performance of his career—certainly worthy of an Oscar nomination," that this film is "probably Scorsese's most accessible movie yet," and that it is "likely the frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar in 2005."

Jonathan Last at the Weekly Standard reviews the extended version:

...The grubby reality is that Return of the King was a deeply flawed enterprise. It was, by leagues, the weakest of the three movies. The pacing was poor, the timeline condensed. There were plot holes and characters who suddenly became passive. There were dramatic deformities aplenty. And yet there is good news: This week the extended version of Return of the King comes to DVD. The four-disc set is loaded with features and commentaries and, most important, 50 extra minutes of footage which has been woven into the film. This extra footage addresses, I'm happy to say, nearly every defect which I reported on a year ago.

THE FULL EXTENDED EDITION of Return of the King now runs a staggering 250 minutes. Yet, if anything, it moves more briskly than the theatrical release....

The Extended Edition of Return of the King restores order and honor to Middle Earth. Just in time for Christmas.

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Meanwhile, Mark Moring of Christianity Today writes:

In the case of the 50 additional minutes of the ROTK special edition, that's debatable. Some of the additions and extended scenes unquestionably flesh out the story—and a few of the characters—making an already wonderful film even richer. But other additions—including several that undermine the dignity of some of the characters—do nothing to improve the film, making one ask, "Does this movie really have to be 250 minutes long, especially when the 200-minute theatrical version was clearly a winner?"

I'd say about half of the extra 50 minutes actually enhance the film. The other half don't add much at all, and indeed, they detract.

Charles Krauthammer has a nice article in today's WaPo, called Just Leave Christmas Alone. Here are some excerpts:

It is Christmastime, and what would Christmas be without the usual platoon of annoying pettifoggers rising annually to strip Christmas of any Christian content? With some success. . . .

The attempts to de-Christianize Christmas are as absurd as they are relentless. . . .

Some Americans get angry at parents who want to ban carols because they tremble that their kids might feel "different" and "uncomfortable" should they, God forbid, hear Christian music sung at their school. I feel pity. What kind of fragile religious identity have they bequeathed their children that it should be threatened by exposure to carols? . . .

It is the more deracinated members of religious minorities, brought up largely ignorant of their own traditions, whose religious identity is so tenuous that they feel the need to be constantly on guard against displays of other religions -- and who think the solution to their predicament is to prevent the other guy from displaying his religion, rather than learning a bit about their own.

To insist that the overwhelming majority of this country stifle its religious impulses in public so that minorities can feel "comfortable" not only understandably enrages the majority but commits two sins. The first is profound ungenerosity toward a majority of fellow citizens who have shown such generosity of spirit toward minority religions.

The second is the sin of incomprehension -- a failure to appreciate the uniqueness of the communal American religious experience. . . .

More than two centuries later, it is time that members of religious (and anti-religious) minorities, as full citizens of this miraculous republic, transcend something too: petty defensiveness.

Merry Christmas. To all.

A great quote from the top Christian philosophers in the world today:

...You don't automatically produce a defeater for Christian belief just by standing on your roof and proclaiming (even loudly and slowly),"God is dead!" (Not even if you add: "And everybody I know says so too.") Nor can you call Christian belief (or anything else) into question just by declaring, "I hereby call that into question!" You can't destroy a way of thinking just by announcing, "I hereby destroy that way of thinking!" This will not do the job, not even if it is embodied in writing of coruscating wit and style, and not even if you adopt a superior air and elegant gestures while intoning it. Something further is required.

Joe Carter wants to see McCain's "Straight Talk Express" derailed. Me, too.

In his latest newsletter Don Whitney writes:

"We were blessed in our family worship time recently by reading A Token for Children by James Janeway and Cotton Mather (Soli Deo Gloria publishers). This was the best-selling children's book in America in the 1600s, 1700s, and early 1800s. It contains the story of several children who were converted, some shortly before death. Although each child in the book eventually dies at the end of its chapter, it's not a sad or grim book. Many had some of the most glorious deathbed scenes I've ever read. I don't know that any other book has had such an impact on Laurelen. While reading such dated language, I sometimes had to edit on the fly, but she had no trouble with the language, even when she was the one reading aloud. No other book we've read as a family has (1) made the Gospel so evidently a message for children as well as adults, and (2) made it so plain that children, too, may die and should prepare for death while young, and (3) made a relationship with God by children so winsome and attractive to children. If you're interested, call Audubon Press at 800-405-3788 about it, and tell them you read about it here."

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The book is also available from Amazon, and can be ordered here: A Token for Children: Being an Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives, and Joyful Deaths of Several Young Children in Two Parts to Which Is Added a token

Gene Veith writes about Antony Flew's conversion (of sorts) to theism in this week's World Magazine.

Marvin Olasky writes:

"As the new year approaches, here's a resolution we should make as individuals and as a society: Let's hold off retirement until we really need it."

"We have an alternative to pay-me-now or have-the-descendants-pay-more-later, and it's called: Work more now."

Talk radio is sometimes criticized for being trivial, and more often criticized for being nothing more than the rantings and ravings of partisan hacks. Certainly a fair amount of talk radio fits that billing.

The folks at the Salem Radio Network, however, are to be commended for the high-quality shows they have assembled. Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and Dennis Prager are three of their standouts. Hewitt is an evangelical, and Medved and Prager are both Jewish. Prager is perhaps the most thoughtful and philosophical--and the one most likely to admit that he's wrong or to criticize his own side when it makes a mistake. Medved is the best on contemporary pop culture, with frequent movie reviews. He is also anyone's top pick for a game of Trivial Pursuit--he has an encyclopedic knowledge of endless array of topics. And Hewitt--a former Emmy-award-winning reporter for PBS--has the best political nose, espousing his principled pragmatism, and more often then not, getting his analysis spot on. Hewitt is the only one of the three that blogs, and is a pioneer in the intersection of blogging and talk radio. He's also considered the Historian of the Blogosphere. He is the author of the forthcoming Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World (due out on Jan. 14). (There will be an audio CD as well, narrated by Hewitt.) If you want to understand the blogging revolution, you'll want to buy this book.

All three--Hewitt, Medved, and Prager--are friendly toward evangelicals, though Hewitt (of course) is the only one who explicitly advocates the Christian worldview. I once heard Hewitt say on his show--which is not about Christianity per se, but is mainly on politics and culture--say in no uncertain terms that if you don't believe in the virgin birth, you are not a Christian. End of story. Quite refreshing!

Well, yesterday Hewitt had Dr. Mark Roberts and Dr. Albert Mohler on his program, discussing the Newsweek cover story: “The Birth of Jesus – Faith and History: How the Story of Christmas Came to Be," by John Meacham. Dr. Roberts is the Senior Pastor at Irvine Presbyterian Church in Irvine, California. He has a B.A. in religion, an M.A. in the study of religion, and a Ph.D. in NT studies and Christian origins--all from Harvard. Dr. Mohler is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. In addition to his presidential duties, he teaches seminary classes, hosts a one-hour radio program each day, travels, and writes a 1500-word blog column everyday. The date of the Newsweek cover story was December 13. On that very day, Roberts and Mohler--along with others--had thoroughly dismantled Meacham's reporting.

Now Hewitt is hosting a blog symposia, where he is linking to other blogs that are commenting on this story and what it tells us about the MSM (mainstream media). One of the most insightful entries is Joe Carter's Marabouts, Magicians, and Meacham: The Continuing Decline of the Mainstream Media. Money quote:

Throughout history cultural elites like the marabouts have been able to secure their influence by controlling knowledge that is not available to the “common man.” In America that influence has, at least for the past forty years, been wielded by the mainstream media. But the advent of the Internet -- and the blogosphere in particular -- has stripped away the façade that the media possesses specialized information that is unavailable to the masses. . . . The primary problem with Meacham’s article isn’t that it’s unashamedly biased (though it certainly is that) nor even that he “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” No, the fatal flaw is in Meacham’s assumption that we don’t know what he doesn’t know. . . .

This is not to say that Meacham (or journalists in general) are not intelligent people. The Newsweek editor appears to be extremely talented and accomplished. But like his colleague Dan Rather, Meacham errs in assuming that his institution’s credibility and prestige imbues him with some form of singular knowledge and insight. His pedantic approach to the nativity story, though, only makes him appear, as Hewitt notes, “hugely silly.” Biblical scholars such as Mark Roberts and Al Mohler have not only revealed Meacham’s naïve understanding of the material but have done so with remarkable speed. Though the story appears in the December 13th issue, it has already been dissected and scrutinized by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of bloggers. The newsweeklies can hardly get their biased pieces onto newsstands nowadays before they're discredited.

Hewitt is to be commended for being the visionary at the center of this. This would not have happened two years ago. But the intersection of blogging, talk radio, and a blogger who promotes other bloggers, is creating a reformation of the way we interact with information. And I, for one, am loving it.

It looks like the FCC is moving toward allowing high-speed, wireless internet access and cell phone use on airplanes.

Crossway's The Vanishing Word: The Veneration of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World by Arthur W. Hunt III receives a positive review from Douglas Groothuis.

Cindy Crosby at Christianity Today also wrote a "review" of the book--but it's only 154 words long (compared to Groothius' 974-word review). Crosby's entire "review," except for a single sentence, is summary ("Hunt says...he writes...Hunt contrasts...Hunt believes...he writes...Hunt examines...He also explores"). Her only "analysis" is that "At times his tone becomes strident, though, when he discusses issues such as music, worship styles, and church service dress."

I don't mean to be harsh, but I find reviews like this to be almost worthless. One doesn't need to even read the book to write them--all of this information could have been found by reading the table of contents, or the back cover, or the introduction.

But perhaps the review itself is evidence of Hunt's thesis regarding "the vanishing word."

You can now listen online for free to the talks from Desiring God's 2004 national conference, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ. You can hear John Piper give two talks on "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ," Ben Patterson on the Goodness of Sex and the Glory of God, Al Mohler on Gay Marriage, Mark Dever on the Puritans and Sex, David Powlison on Sexual Brokeness, C.J. Mahaney addressing married men, Carolyn Mahaney addressing married women, Mark Dever and his associates addressing single men, and Carolyn McCulley addressing single women.

I'm currently editing the talks for a book by the same name, which should be published by Crossway Books in the Spring of 2005.

In Christianity Today's "Passages" column, they note:

Fired John E. Sanders as theology professor at Huntington College in Indiana. Sanders is a leading proponent of open theism, which declares that God cannot exhaustively know the future because of human free will. College president G. Blair Dowden said pressure from the United Brethren Church and fears of falling enrollments prompted the decision.

This information was first given in an article on open theism in the November 26 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

I spoke with a representative in the President's office at Huntington. He said that CT had not contacted Huntington about this notice, and they did not seem happy about that. While it is likely that this will be Dr. Sanders' final year at Huntington, he said that "no formal action has been taken yet." To the best of my understanding, then, this will probably happen, but hasn't happened yet.

Those who know me know that I've been heavily influenced by John Frame's writings, particularly the first two installments of his projected four-volume Theology of Lordship series: The Doctrine of God (winner of the EPCA Gold Medallion award) and The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (on epistemology, or how we know God, world, and self). He is currently working on volume 3, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, a major textbook on Christian ethics. (The fourth volume will be on the Doctrine of the Word of God.) He has posted drafts of the first 21 chapters online.

The book probably won't be published for a couple of more years, but you can get an early jump on reading them! I took an ethics class from Professor Frame, and can assure you that this is excellent, practical, insightful, biblical material.

(FYI: For some reason, Mozilla doesn't display all of the them, while Explorer works just fine.)

Some of us look forward to social situations. Conversation flows easily. Good questions are asked and answered. For others of us, it can be a bit painful--running through our mental rolodex of unimaginative questions ("How was your week?").

The Christmas season often times means more social occassions than usual. It also can mean fresh opportunities to interact with unbelievers. Perhaps you'll be helped by a list of 10 Questions to Ask at a Christmas Gathering, put together by Don Whitney.

Ten Questions to Ask at a Christmas Gathering

Many of us struggle to make conversation at Christmas gatherings, whether church events, work-related parties, neighborhood drop-ins, or annual family occasions. Sometimes our difficulty lies in having to chat with people we rarely see or have never met. At other times we simply don't know what to say to those with whom we feel little in common. Moreover, as Christians we want to take advantage of the special opportunities provided by the Christmas season to share our faith, but are often unsure how to begin. Here's a list of questions designed not only to kindle a conversation in almost any Christmas situation, but also to take the dialogue gradually to a deeper level. Use them in a private conversation or as a group exercise, with believers or unbelievers, with strangers or with family.

1. What's the best thing that's happened to you since last Christmas?
2. What was your best Christmas ever? Why?
3. What's the most meaningful Christmas gift you've ever received?
4. What was the most appreciated Christmas gift you've ever given?
5. What was your favorite Christmas tradition as a child?
6. What is your favorite Christmas tradition now?
7. What do you do to try to keep Christ in Christmas?
8. Why do you think people started celebrating the birth of Jesus?
9. Do you think the birth of Jesus deserves such a nearly worldwide celebration?
10. Why do you think Jesus came to earth?

Of course, remember to pray before your Christmas gatherings. Ask the Lord to grant you "divine appointments," to guide your conversations, and to open doors for the gospel. May He use you to bring glory to Christ this Christmas.

Phil Ryken offers a review, too.

The gents at 9Marks.com have posted a number of new reviews on Rick Warren's popular books: The Purpose-Driven Church (reviewed by Paul Alexander), The Purpose-Driven Life (reviewed by Paul Alexander), and the 40 Days of Purpose (reviewed by Greg Gilbert).

Dennis Prager offers insightful commentary here about how divided our country is--between the easily offended and the not-so-easily offended. It is well worth reading.

Blue America: The land of the easily offended
Dennis Prager

Commentators on our country explain our blue-red division in many ways -- liberal-conservative; secular-religious; North-South; coasts-heartland; singles-married with children.

I propose one more explanation: the easily offended-the not so easily offended.

With the acknowledgment that there are many individual exceptions, a major defining characteristic of modern-day liberalism is the ease with which liberals take offense personally and/or on behalf of others.

Liberals regularly portray as offended women, African Americans, Jews, American Indians, gays and every other group liberals declare a minority, i.e., any group that votes Democrat -- no group that votes Republican, such as Mormons, Cuban Americans and Vietnamese Americans, is considered a "minority." All other groups are constantly warned that almost anything they say that is not patronizing of those groups is offensive (and therefore subject to litigation).

Having given thousands of lectures across the country and on all seven continents (yes, Antarctica, too) over the past 30 years, I can vouch for the personal-offense element. I am continually astounded at how often members of the audience (usually liberal women) will say they are offended by something I said, when what they really mean is that they don't agree with me.

It is most unlikely that conservative men or women speak that way -- saying, "I am offended" -- when they hear liberal speakers.

For one thing, conservatives are so used to being labeled as stupid, bigoted, ignorant, racist, homophobic, sexist, insensitive and intolerant that it is almost impossible to offend them. Moreover, the culture does not allow them to feel offended, since they are not an officially designated minority.

For another, liberal positions are far more emotion-based than reason-based.

To cite but one of many examples, take the widely held liberal slogan "War is not the answer." It is pure irrationality. War has ended more evil than anything the left has ever thought of. In the last 60 years alone, it ended Nazism and the Holocaust; it saved half of Korea from genocide; it kept Israel from national extinction and a second Holocaust; it saved Finland from becoming a Stalinist totalitarian state; and according to most of the people who put "War is not the answer" stickers on their bumpers, it saved Bosnian Muslims from ethnic cleansing.

The list of irrational, feelings-based liberal positions is almost as long as the list of contemporary liberal positions. The relevant point here is that people who take positions based on feelings will of necessity take disagreement more personally and feel offended more often than others.

Liberals' claims of being offended themselves or on behalf of a selected group are almost endless.

Liberal Jews and non-Jews claim that "Merry Christmas" offends Jews and other non-Christians. That 90 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas is of no importance to the easily offended.

Liberal blacks and other liberals see racism almost everywhere in America. To cite a typical example, the absence of black musicians in major orchestras has frequently been named as an example of white racism, despite the fact that many orchestras audition musicians behind a curtain. To non-liberals, the reason probably lies in the fact that few black kids learn to play the oboe or viola. And the sad result of liberals taking offense at so much white behavior is that many whites now talk very guardedly and unnaturally to blacks.

Liberal American Indian spokesmen and other liberals regularly tell us how offensive Indian names of sports teams are. The latest polls show that most Indians have no problem with such names, but liberals are still offended on their behalf. To make the point of how offensive the name "Indians" is for the Cleveland baseball team, one liberal caller once asked me, "How would you feel if a team were named 'Jews'?" I told him that it would be a great day in Jewish history -- for 3,000 years, Jews have been looking for fans.

Part of America remains the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. An almost equally large part is now the Land of the Easily Offended and the Home of the Hypersensitive. Which land we become is a big part of the second American civil war we are fighting.

Here's a commentary on FoxNews.com written by Wayne Grudem:

What Do Evangelical Seek?

Evangelical Christians voted overwhelmingly for President Bush because we hoped for certain changes in the nation, changes consistent with the moral values that we see taught in the Bible.

Michelle Malkin explains why Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta should be impreached. Couldn't agree more.