February 2009
58 posts
Apologies
Sorry about the newest color scheme here; it was 40º today and I’m staring at this commentary on Daniel from the Hermeneia series. You know the rest.
January 2009
65 posts
"Writing" by Howard Nemerov
The cursive crawl, the squared-off characters these by themselves delight, even without a meaning, in a foreign language, in Chinese, for instance, or when skaters curve all day across the lake, scoring their white records in ice. Being intelligible, these winding ways with their audacities and delicate hesitations, they become miraculous, so intimately, out there at the pen’s point or brush’s...
Happy Day
So my brief relationship with Apple’s Pages 08 is at an end due to a very gracious birthday gift: I am back using my old favorite (but the new full-blown version, “Pro”) Nisus Writer. No, it does not do everything that Pages does, and is far less “robust” than MS Word (shudder), but it is the one thing that has consistently met my needs: easy control over style, the most portable document...
Modern vs. Ancient Natural Order
“The notion that the forms are at work, this was essential to the ancient ethical tradition, with which I was contrasting above a modern reconstructivist view, which sees a form imposed ab extra on nature by human will. Now the new notion of nature remains within this reconstructivist perspective. The order is not itself at work, striving for realization. Rather, it is a way in which things...
UMN: The Purpose of Purpose: A Lecture by Richard... →
I like the irony: “We humans are obsessed with purpose. The question, ‘What is it for?’ comes naturally to a species surrounded by tools, utensils and machines. For such artifacts it is appropriate, but then we go too far. We apply the ‘What is it for?’ question to rocks, mountains, stars or the universe, where it has no place.”
Science to Religion: “STOP ASKING SO MANY QUESTIONS.”
Creationist Hate Mail & Picking Your Battles
Apropos of my family’s new love affair with the BBC Planet Earth DVD set (via Viz):
“The only point I really wish to make here has to do with the idea of giving “credit” to God. First of all, that phrasing, that word “credit”—pretty odd. Shall Sir David start giving God a “Creator” credit in his films (or how about “Assistant to Sir David Attenborough”)? Shall he conclude his...
Untouched East Germany flat found » BBC NEWS |... →
Super cool, but where are the photos? Come on.
Stacy Johnson throws down the gauntlet » The... →
I’m not sure I have the words to describe what breath-takingly bad exegesis and theology this is. How hard is it to understand that Scripture calls us *all* sinners, and we *all* need to repent of our sins, whatever that might be. Church *is* for sinners, but sinners who repent in knowledge of the law and the gospel.
This last line from the story sums up how that idea is gone: “An...
rentzsch's clicktoflash →
Via Gruber, who says this: “BSD-licensed open source WebKit browser plugin that prevents Flash content from loading automatically. Instead, each Flash element appears as a simple gradient; to load it, you click it. Works in both Safari and WebKit nightly builds, and, in my testing, significantly decreases the amount of CPU used when you have a slew of open windows and tabs. And it’s a...
"On diacritics" | i love typography →
Super cool article about designing and using diacritical marks in type by David Březina. (I hope I got the right mark on that R)
SimpleBits ~ Use the Best Available Ampersand →
A new-ish CSS tip from Dan Cederholm; employed by me today. Thanks Dan!
Genesis 4
Mike: So whenever anything goes right in culture, it is because God is behind it.
Kim: And because God is gracious; not in terms of redemptive grace, but because God as a heavenly father is gracious to his creatures.
Ken: And we can't be surprised when pagans who are recipients of common grace misuse that grace. And I think that, for instance, music: God gave the gift of music as an element of common grace. But we can't we overly surprised when pagans take that musical gift and pervert it.
Mike: Like Air Supply.
Ken: Absolutely.
Faith and Theology: God does not magnify himself:... →
Ben Myers takes on Tom Schreiner, Jonathan Edwards, and John Piper in this post about God *not* glorifying himself. If his reading of Edwards and Schreiner was correct (and it is not), I would have some sympathy with his position about this sort of God being perverse and these men’s concept of ‘glory’ being way off the biblical mark (i.e. a theology of glory rather than a theology of the...
Do Not Forget What Is Old
“The LORD said, ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’’
[Jeremiah 6:16]
“‘Herdsmen!’ said Théoden. ‘Where are their flocks? What are they, Gandalf? For it is plain that to you, at any rate, they are not strange.’
‘They are the shepherds of the trees,’ answered Gandalf. ‘Is it so long since you listened...
What do you expect?
Given Alan Jacobs’ thoughts on the Amazon Kindle and the experience of reading a book on a screen, this passage from Lupton was interesting. Is the Kindle closer to a printed page or to a web site? What is the user’s expectation of reading on a Kindle in relation to its closest sibling?
“The impatience of the digital reader arises from culture, not from the essential character of display...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-1-25) →
Vince Guaraldi Trio (24)
Sigur Rós (18)
Bon Iver (16)
John Coltrane (14)
Matt Haeck (12)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
“Reading Auden on Dostoevsky, or Trilling on Henry James, and then reading Lacan...”
– Arthur Krystal (via viz)
“It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of men to be busy...”
– Ecclesiastes 1:13b
The great new track from Bon Iver (Eau Claire,...
Not As Such
I’m cool with a new president and all, but when Apple puts together a list of songs “For Hope and Change” and says that “Faith is the first step to a better tomorrow…” and then includes two tracks that are clearly looking forward to heaven in God’s presence (U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “Walk On”), I get a little...
MLK, Jr., on BBC in 1964, predicts an... →
Amazing. From this perspective, this is a banner day.
Advice for theological students: ten steps to a... →
“10. Under no circumstances should you resort to old-fashioned pieties like daily prayer and Bible-reading. There are far too many important things to be thinking about, and far too many important things to be reading. (Church attendance is acceptable, however, since it gives you the opportunity of improving your pastor’s theological education.)”
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-1-18) →
Bon Iver (17)
Amiina (12)
Indelible Grace Music (10)
Bob Kauflin (9)
Beirut (9)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
More cold weather fun →
Unbreakable eggs, banana hammers, glass soap bubbles.
The Impossible Project →
peterbaker:
“We aim to re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras in 2010. We have acquired Polaroid’s old equipment, factory and seek your support.” (via)
YES.
Is Wake Forest the best team in the country? →
That is a *very* good question.
NT Wright’s critique of “a” Reformed view of... →
“I just don’t see how Wright can say this. Apart from having a robust doctrine of sanctification, Reformed theology has never been shy of language that speaks of “Spirit-empowered works”. I admit that some today do in fact sound like Antinomians, but to suggest that the Reformed interpretive tradition is somehow “shy” of “good works” is contrary to the facts, with perhaps (as I have said) a...
Caring for Your Introvert
portraitoftheartistasayoungman:
Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts. Also, it is probably due to our lack of small talk, a lack that extroverts often mistake for disdain. We tend to think before talking, whereas...
Hot water freezes mid-air @ MPLS →
From WCCO. More cold, more snow, on their way.
Don't just repeat yourself, explain yourself
“The subjects under discussion between 318 and 381 were not, as has sometimes been alleged, those raised by Greek theology or philosophy and such as could only have been raised by people thinking in Greek terms. It was not simply a quarrel about Greek ideas. … It was the problem of how to reconcile two factors which were part of the very fabric of Christianity: monotheism, and the worship...
An Historical Greek Grammar: Chiefly of the Attic... →
Jannaris’ diachronic grammar for free download.