WEAKNESS, HUMILITY & 9/11: In this video, Dr. Jim Bradford shares some profound reflections on 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, with special reference to 9/11. Excellent!

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God’s Best Work (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), posted with vodpod

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THE ORIGINAL GOSPEL: Over at Christianity Today, “The King Jesus Gospel,” Scot McKnight writes:

The apostles evangelized by telling the story of Jesus. Our gospel preaching and evangelism tend to tell the story of how to be saved personally. There is a major difference between the story of Jesus and a Plan of Salvation ….

This quote is an excerpt from McKnight’s new book, The King Jesus Gospel, which looks good. You might also want to check out McKnight’s article, “Jesus vs. Paul.”

Many biblical scholars and lay Christians have noted that Jesus preached almost exclusively about the kingdom of heaven, while Paul highlighted justification by faith—and not vice versa. Some conclude that they preached two different gospels. Others argue that really they both preached justification; still others say it’s all about the kingdom. What gives?

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IS BIBLICAL INERRANCY AN EVANGELICAL INNOVATION? “Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy.”

In this essay, I will reiterate the thesis that biblical inerrancy has been a church doctrine or Augustinian central teaching of the Western Christian churches, including evangelical Protestant churches. Consequently, evangelicals who affirm the doctrine of biblical inerrancy are by no means doctrinal innovators. By biblical inerrancy, I mean in shorthand the doctrine that the Bible is infallible for faith and practice as well as for matters of history and science. By the expression church doctrine, I am referring to a widespread shared belief of Christian churches that have had a historical existence in the West.

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DESIGNER RELIGION: “More Americans tailoring religion to fit their needs.”

The folks who make up God as they go are side-by-side with self-proclaimed believers who claim the Christian label but shed their ties to traditional beliefs and practices. Religion statistics expert George Barna says, with a wry hint of exaggeration, America is headed for “310 million people with 310 million religions.”

“We are a designer society. We want everything customized to our personal needs — our clothing, our food, our education,” he says. Now it’s our religion.

One of the functions of Christianity, it seems to me, is to reveal what needs Americans need to be fit in their lives.

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MAYBE THE SKY ISN’T FALLING: “The Press and the Future of Religion.”

The United States is often referred to as a “post-Christian” nation. In one sense, that is true: The moral and cultural assumptions shaped by Christianity that used to hold sway in American society, can no longer be taken for granted. They must be defended and contended for in the public square.

But that’s not the same as saying that Americans are becoming more like Europeans when it comes to matters like church attendance or belief in a personal God. In many ways the shift in cultural assumptions I just noted is taking place in spite of what Americans believe and do, not because of them.

It seems to me that Charles Colson’s point in this article is consistent with George Barna’s point in the article immediately above. People continue to identify themselves as Christian, but what they mean by that label is increasingly up for grabs, hence the change in “moral and cultural assumptions shaped by Christianity that used to hold sway in American society.”

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CHRISTIANITY CONTEXTUALIZED: “Christianity in China: God Is Red.”

In the Mao era, local Christians were not allowed to pray and attend church, and were forced to accept the Communist ideology. They complied but only a few openly denounced their faith. Some brave Christians gathered secretly for services. As a result, Christianity survived, and a few years after Mao Zedong’s death, it came back again with a vengeance. Village after village became Christian territory. While Christians in China’s major cities are greatly divided over the government-sanctioned churches, but villagers here are not so political. They attend Sunday service at government-sponsored churches but also participate in services held by family pastors. It is not uncommon to see families display Chairman Mao’s portrait side by side with that of Jesus on their living room walls.

I live in the cities, where Christianity has also flourished in the post-Mao era but with a distinctive foreign identity. Many new converts, who are educated and well-off professionals or retirees, have embraced Christianity the way they do Coke-Cola or a Volkswagen — believing that a foreign faith, like foreign-made products, has better quality. Here in the Yi villages, Christianity is now as indigenous as qiaoba, a special Yi buckwheat cake.

The author’s book is God Is Red: The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China.

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ANTI-BULLYING, PERIOD:“‘Anti-bullying’ as a pro-gay wedge.”

For many years now, the gay movement has been using school bullying as a wedge to work pro-gay teaching into curricula and into the life of public schools, and to marginalize religious students and others who hold a traditional view of the morality of homosexuality. It goes under the mantra of making schools “safe.” If you don’t affirm homosexuality explicitly, the argument goes, then you are making your schools unsafe for gay kids. You can well imagine how lawsuit-fearing school administrators hate to hear that.

It’s nonsense, of course. There is no reason at all why pro-gay instruction, either in classrooms or extracurricular, has to happen for bullying to be opposed effectively. What’s wrong with a school administration saying that bullying will not be tolerated, and making good on that policy by coming down like a ton of bricks on bullies, no matter their target? That would be the most value-neutral way to handle it.

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PRO-LIFE MORAL CLARITY: “Assisted Suicide: The Forgotten Front in the Fight for Life.”

People quite naturally recognize that life is better than death, that the deliberate destruction of life is an evil to be avoided, and that the state has a role to play in preventing suicides. It follows logically from these uncontested (and incontestable) observations that state laws prohibiting euthanasia and assisted suicide are just and efficacious. But, like magicians who use distractions to remove the important object from view, proponents of legalized death have shrouded the inviolability of human life in a mist of confusion. Exposing their ploys is the first step in defeating their efforts to advance the culture of death. Below are three arguments that are likely to be advanced for legalization in Massachusetts. All three are designed to distract and to deceive

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UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF DEMOCRACY: “U.S. warns that Arab revolts are exposing religious intolerance.”

The popular revolts against longtime dictators in the Middle East and North Africa may have given hope to millions of Arabs, but the State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report found that the uprisings have exposed ethnic and religious minorities to new dangers.

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MAYBE, MAYBE NOT: “Does Dems’ loss mean trouble with Jewish voters?”

Republicans jumped on the Democrats’ Tuesday loss of the congressional seat given up by scandalized U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner as a sign of eroding Jewish support for President Barack Obama and his party.

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AND YET, STILL CREEPY: “How to Understand the Death Penalty Cheers.”

In California, of all states, those who favor the death penalty are frustrated by an unwillingness to actually use it. The most recent California execution was in 2006, of a convicted triple murderer who had already been serving a life sentence at the time. In a nation founded on the rule of law, not men, this incoherence breeds discontent and frustration at lax responses to spilled blood.

Understand this, and you begin to understand the applause.

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WOULDN’T THAT BE IRONIC? “Could Muammar Gaddafi be Jewish?”

Whether the rumor is true or not, Gaddafi is hardly known for being a friend to the Jewish people. When he came to power in 1969, very few Jews remained in Libya, but Gaddafi was able to make the miniscule number shrink even further. Among other things, he confiscated all Jewish property. Today, there is believed to be no Jews left in Libya.

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MORMON-ON-MORMON HUMOR: “How Mormon is Mitt Romney?”

• Mitt is so Mormon he doesn’t do Pilates, he does golden Pilates.
• Mitt is so Mormon he’s organizing his precinct walkers in pairs to knock doors with a very special message.
• Mitt is so Mormon he’d make the Book of Mormon required reading at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
• Mitt Romney is so Mormon that he’s afraid to join the Tea Party because of Doctrine & Covenants 89.
• Mitt is so Mormon he won’t allow advisers wearing non-white dress shirts to participate in cabinet meetings.
• Mitt is so Mormon he’d commission a Mod Bod undershirt to be engraved under the sleeveless dress of the Statue of Liberty.

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FROM MY MAGAZINE: “Holiness in the City” by George Dallas McKinney.

The good news is God has made a way for whoever will believe to return to the family of God and experience the blessedness of holiness. This extends even to those in cities, despite their corruption and poverty and despite their magnificence and wealth.