Theology for the Masses

The 247th Christian Carnival is up over at Rodney Olsen [dot] Net.  There are some pretty good posts up there this week.  Here are some of my favorites:

Tiffany presents So Right, You’re Wrong as she delves into the discovery that being right isn’t nearly as important as being humble and teachable over at her blog Fathom Deep: Sounding the Depths of God.

Rey from the Bible Archive shares what he describes as his likely heretical vision for the western Protestant church in The Once and Future Church.

Raffi Shahinian’s contribution is the post Top 10 Things I Learned from N.T. Wright, Bart Ehrman and The Problem of Evil posted at parables of a prodigal world.

Ken’s post Literalism and the Ascension discusses what it means, and whether it is legitimate, to take the Bible’s miraculous stories “literally” over at C Orthodoxy.

You can investigate how people’s ideas about sacrifice differ from those of the ancient world and a bit about the impact of this for teaching a passage such as Hebrews 7-9 at Henry’s Participatory Bible Study Blog with the post Sacrifice Then and Now.

I got excited for a bit when I saw Tiffany’s name up there.  Wrong Tiffany.  This Tiffany’s thoughts were also good.

The latest Christian Carnival is up over at Diary of One.  Here are some of the posts that stuck out at me.

• Postmodern Philosophy for the Rest of Us–Part 1
• My NLT Odyssey: A Bible translation story
• Bible Study: Jesus’ Use of Q & A

The 218th Christian Carnival is up over at Kiwi and an Emu.

218th Christian Carnival

Some highlights:

The Melchizedek Tradition from the Bible Archive

Cherishing Fidelity is an examination of Proverbs 3:3 over at Light Along the Journey

Why are people so anti-1 Corinthians 14:26-33? looks at why we can’t seem to apply what Paul writes here to the church today from carnival hostee Kiwi and an Emu.

The latest Christian Carnival (CCXVI) is up over at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet. Check it out.

Christian Carnival CCXVI–At Crossroads Today

Here are some of the highlights:
John 18:1-4 – Getting Christological Perspective – A good post on the dangers of looking through scripture with a singular, forced perspective from Deep Bible Study. (Hint: the danger is heresy)

Why This Friday is so Good – As Good Friday approches, Brain Cramps for God looks 50 fifty reasons the Bible gives for Jesus’ coming to die. (We’ll forgive the use of Piper! ;) )

A different view of Scripture by Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength – A “||” reading of scripture.

The latest and greatest Christian Carnival is up over at Thinking Christian. Check it out:

Christian Carnival CCXIV

Here are some of the highlights (excepting therefrom our posts!) (now with pithy quotes!):

Muslims Worshiping But Not Worshiping God

Nevertheless, it seems completely ludicrous to me to claim that this being that is falsely and ungenuinely worshiped by Muslims is not God. Muhammad intended to refer to the God long worshiped by Jews and Christians that Muhammad when he said all those false things about God. The being he misrepresented and twisted all sorts of things about is the God of the Bible. I don’t know how the historical facts can get around that.

Is Systematic Theology Bad?

Systematic theology, like biblical theology and historical theology, like pastoral counseling and evangelism training, is a tool created by flawed, God-loving Christians for the service of the saints to the glory of God. It’s an important tool in the Christian faith, and its occasional misuse should not deter us from its regular use.

War and Religion

The human race is great at finding reasons to slaughter each other – but religion has neither been the chief cause or the principle feature of that slaughter: not even close.

The Importance of Silence

Living in evangelical communities for most of my adult life, I have often heard, and then corrected, ignorant arguments against liturgy as dull, boring, and repetitive. Didn’t these people realize liturgy is one of the best opportunities for a person to interact with God in the midst of other believers—to be the local body of Christ?

As of yesterday, the latest Christian Carnival is up over at Lingamish, a blog by a Bible translator living in Africa.

The Christian Carnival is a great way to a) find some of the best posts on Christianity/theology out there and b) find some of the best Christian blogs. It is a weekly publication consisting of author submissions that are Christian in nature.

Christian Carnival 193: Lions in Africa edition

Some of the highlights:

• Our Tom on I Timothy 2 and the Artemis Cult
• Fighting Despondency with Faith by Light Along the Journey considers modeling Jesus’ way of dealing with despondency.
• Common prayer is far too uncommon by Lingamish – on the corporate worship that is common prayer

The 189th Christian Carnival is up at Diary of 1.

The theme for this week is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Every post has a Bonhoeffer quote as an introduction, either from his work or from a biography of his life.

Check it out!