There once was a book, “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Is In 1988”, written by Edgar C. Whisenant. Maybe some of you remember it. Despite it’s compelling title, it doesn’t seem to have enjoyed the longevity that, let’s say, Nostradamus’ work has, but perhaps that’s because in retrospect his subject matter wasn’t quite as timeless. Nevertheless, it was a popular book at the time. I say this because the Christian Carnival is now 88 iterations-old, and as I was thinking about it, it popped into my head that 88 rhymes with eighty-eight, and that is what made me think of that book. I know the association between the two seems like the Department of Redundancy Dept., but to me its reminiscent of some of the lyrics to the Jon Wayne song “Texas Funeral”: “I went to daddy’s funeral just the other day/It’s just been three short days since he passed away/Seems he died from having too much to drink/That’s how his truck ended up in the drink”. Now, given my reference to those genius Cowboy Priests of the Absurd, one would predict that God eventually killed poor Whisenant. Nevertheless, he lived. We know this because, undaunted by the failure of his little myopic, Whisenant followed it with even littler and ever increasingly myopics: “The Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989”, “1990”, “1991”, “1992”, “1993”. The endless mercies of God never cease to surprise me.

Well, if you’ve visited DF&C before, you’ll notice something new: uhh…everything. This wasn’t exactly my doing, and I’m not exactly happy about it, but if you want to read more about that you may do so here. I haven’t contributed much to the Carnivals lately, for reasons some of you know (marriage, house, etc.), but this latest SNAFU really has thrown me off. Since right now and for the next several weeks I’ll be wandering aimlessly in the aftermath of a ISP admin hurricane tornado, I’m going to do what all people do in a time of crisis, and that is retreat to comforting old habits and patterns. For some people that’s Strawberry Poptarts and stealing televisions; in my case it would be “armchair critique” marked by the occasional verbal passing of wind, expertly timed. I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. In any case, what that means is that below you will find all the posts for this week’s Christian Carnival, all of which I will read thoroughly, but as I am whimsically moved by my own inner jackass drive to have an opinion on nearly everything, I will add some personal commentary of my own. This is my house, after all, and if I want to put a trumpet in my rear and run around the house naked playing “Hallelujah, Yankee Doodle”, well, then that’s my prerogative. Not that I think that makes me a good person.

So, on to the Carnival, which has 53 entries this week! But before you do, go check out my Year in Review. It’s a compendium of my best posts over the last year. This will have to make up for the fact that my blog was burgled and I’ve been scrambling to restore it to it’s former glory! If you’ve never been here before, here’s About Me, and About DF&C. Normally I have a separate page for this, but my house is a mess right now. Email me with any linkage problems, if you did not get a trackback, or if I forgot to include your post. Enjoy!

Society & Culture

• Thomas Gilson of Thinking Christian asks whether we are at “The End of Right and Wrong?” in his post of the same name (strangely enough!). He explores the assertion by a commenter on another post “What does it mean to ask if one group is right and the other is wrong when right and wrong are defined by each group? The situation is relativistic. Both are right for themselves.”

  In a world (or a society) without God, that assertion is correct. This is what Nietzsche was talking about when he declared that “God is dead”. As such, there is only the Will to Power and those people with the most power define what is morally right. Since I don’t believe one can win an argument with people who believe like this because their entire moral frame of reference is fundamentally different that mine, I believe the only solution is to try to get along with them as much as you can, talk to them about Jesus at opportune moments, all the while arming yourself to the teeth. I do believe that the Gospel is powerful to change a person’s worldview, but I’m also not a pacifist. How those two interact, I hope I don’t personally have to find out. But, in the Sudan many Christians deal with this on a daily basis, and what alot of them have done is killed their enemies.

• Lennie of Cross Blogging posts about “Leadership and Christians”.

Politics & Legislation

• David Gulliver, a.k.a. Gullyborg, of Resistance is Futile! blog, and who is a major hippie hater (he hates these hippies! Get away from the hippies!), discusses the true meaning of the “under God” part of the Pledge of Allegiance in “Under Who?”

  I agree with you, but I think the argument overall is fairly pointless nowadays because few people, especially Christians hell-bent on saving America from itself, would be willing to concede the Pledge from the God of the Hebrews to an indistinct universalist deity. Additionally, the “under God” part of the Pledge was added in the 1950s, so it’s not exactly got historicity on it’s side. To the point, however, while I’m fine with the Pledge, I’m not all for the confusion of the Pledge with allegiance to God as most Christians desire it. This is neither a theodemocratic nor a theonomous society, nor do I think it should be. Whether or not we keep the “under God” phrase in the Pledge with whatever God we come under the authority of, does nothing to alleviate the fact that our society is post-Christian and the “under God” phrase is just one more relic of it. The fact that evangelicals are trying like the dickens to recover this society to what they believe is it’s former Christian glory is just proving to me beyond all doubt that this is our “Battle of the Bulge”, and one which we will eventually lose. I believe we are going to get flanked by secularism so hard once we’ve fully shot our wad on the political front that we’ll have nothing in reserve to defend out philosophical “homeland”. Personally, I think the next cultural revolution is going to be an artistic one, and one which Christians are already being put in forward positions ready to strike. More on that in another post.

• Mark Swanson of Runalong With Pastor Mark ask some critical questions of Christian bloggers in his post “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Party Affiliation”.

  What are those critical questions? Here’s one that made me chortle: “Do you understand that to many being a social conservative is perceived as being an intolerant self-righteous, shallow fanatic and that, strange as it may seem, most people don’t want to become like that?” Amen to that. Thank God the one thing I am NOT is shallow. The rest…well, I try to hide them under wry witticisms and a semitic charm, sort of like the French try to hide their stanky stank with perfume.

• Offering it’s first submission to the Carnival is Carolina Christian Conservative with the post, “Who Will Speak for Marriage?” Spurred on by the recent attempt in California to legalize same-sex marriage, Alexander Samuels, a regular contributor to Carolina Christian Conservative, writes about why it is vitally important for pastors to join this spiritual battle by speaking up and defending marriage as it was instituted and ordained by God at Creation.

  I don’t know if I blame it on pastors so much. To me it’s like blaming the government or George Bush because you tripped over your own shoelaces. Church members should take responsibility for the things they claim to believe in, stop making the pastor do everything, and get off their derrieres and put their shoulder to the oxcart. Most pastors are grossly overworked as it is. Yes, pastors should inform their congregations of political goings-on, but it’s up to individual Christians to act. In any case, there’s some good discussion in the comments section of this post.

• Jay at Deo Omnis Gloria gives us a very compelling reason “Why Christians Shouldn���t Support the United Way”.

  Why? Because “when you ride alone, you ride with Hitler.”

• In his post “Separation of Church and State Is Biblical” Terry Pruitt of Pruitt Communications argues that healthy church and state relations results in a creative tension between the two instead of the usual goal of “peace” which allows church and state to be lulled to sleep.

  I recently worked on a documentary by a friend of mine, Brian Godawa, on this very subject. The Framers never intended that religion should be excised from public life, and indeed thought it was impossible to do so. They just didn’t think that it was the role of the Federal government to endorse any particular religion or denomination. The states could do whatever they wanted, though. In that way, it is true that the concept of the “wall of separation” has evolved into something that was never intended, that is, a complete cleavage between religion and politics. But, the Framers’ original intent was actually that while there there should be no Federal endorsement of religion, the states themselves could endorse any religion they wanted to. Hence states like Maryland, which was originally wholly Catholic. In fact, if you look at the constitution of Delaware, part of it said that to hold public office it is required that you must confess belief in the Trinity. This documentary, entitled “Wall of Separation: The Phrase That Divided America” should be coming out in the next 6 months or so. Liev Schreiber narrates.

• Dadmanly writes about governance, poverty and the potential solutions in “The War Within”.

• Stumbling in 17 hours after the last straggler went home, JK Corley at Reaganites Unite! thinks aloud in “Condi in ‘08? Not at this rate!” that if the administration keeps up their lack of support for Israel, God might create a category six hurricane!

  So tell me: the rise of club music, the fall of apartheid…is there a connection? No seriously, while I believe Israel has a unique place in history yet to be uncovered, I don’t believe that Israel is the Land of the Chosen. I’ve got to recycle an old post or two to explain why.

Current Events

• In “After Katrina: Report from Bay Saint Louis���, Derek Gilbert of Weapons of Mass Distraction relays John Wilkerson’s reports from Mississippi in the aftermath of Katrina. He says the devastation is far worse than what we’ve seen on TV.

  Check out the audio blogs.

• Phil Dillon of “Another Man’s Meat” writes about ���The ‘Real’ Perfect Storm���, offering some post-Katrina thoughts, viewed through my years of experience living in the Mississippi Delta.

  A very thorough investigation into Delta life. I really enjoyed it. As an aside, though, you and your wife take vacations at very serendipitous times, I must say. You’re almost like the canaries in the mine. Let me know when you decide to take another one. I’ll make sure to take note of my surroundings and prepare an escape kit, just in case. ;-)

• Keeping it real, Bob James of CrosSwords writes in his post “Keep Safe” his thoughts in anticipation of a coming hurricane. What goes through someone’s mind? What needs to be considered, what preparations are needed. This is one of a series of blog posts that deals with those questions. Part of the fun of this post is that there is an ongoing dialogue with a person who dealt with Katrina who offers her comments to many of the posts.

Philosophy & Theology

• In her post “The Word and the World”, Miss O’Hara (or is it Mrs. now?) ponders whether or not we should use chapter and verse from the Bible when witnessing to non-believers since they do not belong to God, and thus, cannot hear his voice.

  My own twenty bucks (prices have risen due to inflation) is that A) since those who hear his voice are initially chosen by God, then anyone who isn’t chosen by God of course cannot hear his voice, no matter what kind of language you use. B) I work in advertising, and one thing I’ve learned is people buy a product because they need it, want it, or want the ego gratification that comes with it. Since the gospel as a product is both undesirable to the unbeliever, and undesirable from an ego gratification standpoint, you can’t “sell” it to anyone who hasn’t been primed by the Holy Spirit. C) Jesus told parables to the people who listened to him, and quoted scripture only to bolster or reference his story. The reason for this is that truth actually becomes a living thing when told through a story, whereas philosophical or logical truth only ends up being a collection of truth tchochkes for display only. The collection of them does not incarnate the truth. So, I believe that logic and philosophy (which I happen to love and use judiciously) should be used in service to metaphor, ergo I think quoting scripture at the unbeliever outside of narrative is generally a waste of time unless they request it.

• In his post “Free Will” Dick Cleary of Viewpoint states that the debate among Christians over the question of the relationship between free will and predestination seems interminable. He grants that there are worthy arguments on both sides, but nevertheless comes down on the side of James Arminius.

  Feh, I’m too tired to get into this. Let’s just say that, IMHO the issue in this discussion is not whether man has free will or not, but WHEN he has it, and WHAT KIND he has when he has it. Calvin and Arminius were in agreement on almost all points except whether or not a person who has been regenerated by God can still reject him when given the chance to make a choice for Christ. Calvin, following Augustine, said they could not (”Perseverance of the Saints”), Arminius said they could. This is the only major difference between the two men. “Classic Arminianism” is NOT, however, what most evangelicals believe today. They believe a form of semi-Pelagianism or Cassianism (after John Cassian, an immediate contemporary of Augustine) which is very different from what Arminius believed. For those interested in a visual representation of these differences, check this out.

• Jason Greer of The Regulator examines “What is Theology?”, reflecting upon his classwork at Reformed Theological Seminary.

  I like this quote: “Good theology personalizes God because it places him within the context of interacting with people.” Or, as Plato might have put it, it teaches us how to live. In either case, the point is to instruct us how to interact in the world with others, not just so that we can hear ourselves talk. (Ouch! Stop poking me!)

• Joseph Odell, primo member of Team Hammer Hammers away at the Fundies with his post “The Twin Traps of Fundamentalism”. He believes that the first trap of fundamentalism is obvious, the other is more subtle.

  I am of the opinion that the mantrap of humanity is jerk-itude. Get rid of the ‘tude, and you stop being a jerk.

• Martin LaBar of Sun and Shield is trying to get us to know what we’re talking about when we talk about evolution in his post “I Believe in Evolution. So Do You! Part 3″.

  Don’t just say “I don’t believe in evolution.” Rather, say “I don’t believe in evolution, YOU DUMB JERK!”. Just kidding. This lengthy trilogy covers the salient points about the evolution discussion. Go get you some learnin’ and read ‘em!

• Leslie, a guest blogger at “Brutally Honest”, compares and contrasts orthodox Christian thought (as expressed by Jill Carattini of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries) and that expressed by more modern, some would say, emergent theologians, in “A Thought To Ponder”.

  Err…this post was really hard to follow. But, what I think is happening is that the post at the top is a juxtapositioning of two paragraphs that appear to be at odds with one another. The discussion itself is in the comments, which begins at the bottom and works their way to the top. I can’t tell if “rick” and “Rick” are the same person or not.

• Bruce Harpel, pastor, father of five and Sprucegoose blogger writes about The Book of Ezekiel as a companion to his recent set of sermons. Although God had a covenant with Judah and Jerusalem, He did not hesitate to discipline them so severely that there was almost nothing left. He left His temple, defiled it Himself, and departed from Jerusalem and then allowed it to burn to the ground. With this warning, we as Christians should stay away from anything that detracts from God’s glory in our lives.

  There’s so much that detracts from God’s glory in our lives that to me the question isn’t whether we should stay away from such things, but how to prevent being buried by them.

• Jeremy Pierce, a.k.a. Parableman examines the theology of “Natural Disasters and Divine Judgment” positing that the biblical statements that have a bearing on whether a natural disaster can be a judgment from God are far more complicated than people on both sides of this issue want to acknowledge.

  “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.” Excellent post.

• In “Jay Smith - Islam and Christianity: Clash of Civilizations in a Multicultural Age���, Rene of Rene’s Ramblings gives us a thorough overview from her notes of a talk Jay Smith, a missionary to Muslims in the UK, gave at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.

  Oh man, I wish I would have known about that! I definitely would have been there! BTW, do you go to GPC, because if you’re the Rene I’m thinking about, we go to church together! UPDATE: this is the Rene I know from church. That makes 2 bloggers that I go to church with: Rene, and Diane Roberts of Crossroads.

• Richard Anderson of the pithily titled Dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos blog, writes in his post “First to the Jews, then to the Gentiles” suggests that the key verse in understanding the sequence of events in Acts of the Apostles may well be Acts 13:45.

  Interesting read. Thank you!

• Jeff the Baptist gives us a bit of insight into Pauline imagery in “The Sword of the Spirit”. Why is it, when we talk about the Armor of God in Ephesians, we think about medieval knights? We should be talking about Roman legionnaires. The difference matters.

  I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, one gets a much richer understanding of Paul’s use of military imagery when one closely examines the workings of the Roman Army. I pursued that subject closely when I studied Classics at U.C.L.A. because I wanted to make sense of the various references found throughout the NT. For example, the “gladius” is one of the most versatile and deadly edged weapons in history. And as Jeff states, it is a very personal weapon. Not for sweeping slashes like a thinner, longer sword used by calvary cavalry soldiers, but for CQ combat, giving the Roman legionnaire manoeverability once inside his enemy’s defenses.

• Over at the Christianity is Jewish blog we have “Rick Green From Texas!”, with CWV Warrior giving a few reflections on Rick Green’s talk (working with Wallbuilders) plus some bonus research from CWV Warrior in honor of our godly heritage and Constitution Week!

  I like the title of your blog! I keep telling the goyim that Christianity is Jewish, but they usually reply “Throw The Jew Down the Well”!

• Karen Marie Knapp of From the Anchor Hold reflects upon the relationship of the Cross of Christ and the Israelite’s encounter with the seraph serpents during the exodus from Egypt, in “The Cross and the Seraph Serpents”. (The scripture passage about the seraph serpents is the assigned scripture passage for the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, September 14th).

• Ron Stewart of Northern ‘burbs Blog asks “Does Go Do Evil?” Inspired as many writers have been lately from the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Ron writes that the existence of natural evil does not prove that God is evil, or that He isn’t sovereign; He is bringing about good, even in bad circumstances. Part of a series on evil.

  And by “evil” I mean “eeeeveeil” as in “froo-its of the deveeil”. Name that movie quote for a prize.

• At danweasel.com, Andrew Nichols thinks “Benedict Is Wrong About Homosexuals”. He thinks that the evangelical community must embrace those among us who struggle with homosexual urges every day, affirm their identity as children of God, and promise to walk with them in the same struggle that we all face each day.

  Personally, I don’t think homosexuality is any worse than anything else. And I think some people are born that way. It doesn’t mean it’s OK, just like the fact that as a man, I wouldn’t mind having sex with alot of women out of wedlock. As a man, I was born that way. So what, it’s still wrong. Homosexuality is just easy to stigmatize, which is why we pick on it. I find it sad that while we’ll say that a person who struggles with homosexuality is practically ostracized from the evangelical community, the pastor who is a prideful jerk is not, when pride is actually a far more destructive sin. If the pastor were a struggling homosexual, we’d run him out on a rail. If he’s a pride-meister, we hardly say a word.

Church Life & Polity

• Over at Bezalt(dot)Org John Wilkerson expresses some “Thoughts on Katrina and the Impact of Technology on the Church”.

  Well said. John’s post reminds me of me. I started off as a pencil and paper composer, and I used to hand copy my own scores and parts with calligraphy pens, and now I use computers to do everything for me. And, I must admit I love it. I love technology. I’m also a closet Luddite and think that technology is ruining us as human beings, and I have fantasies about chucking it all and growing tomatoes on farm with no electricity. But then I shudder to think what I would do without the Internet. In otherwords, I am horribly double-minded. My only additional observation on John’s post is that it’s obvious he isn’t a Presbyterian, because a good Presbyterian sermon only has 3 points.

• Wayne Moran of Questions and Answers writes how he loves the authentic community he has found in his neighborhood in his post “I Live in the Best Neighborhood”.

  I live in a great neighborhood too, but I am also packing some heat, just for safety. Because I know that if L.A. had an earthquake and there was rampant lawlessness everywhere, my neighbors would slit my throat in a heartbeat to get my Brown Sugar Cinnamon Poptarts and my plasma screen TV. I lived near downtown during the L.A. riots, and lemme tell ya, there wasn’t a grocery store for miles that wasn’t burned to the ground, and there were alot of gunshots during those first couple of lawless days and nights.

• Diane Roberts of Crossroads takes a really interesting look at the intersection of Children, the Holy Spirit, and spiritual gifts in her post “Children and the Spirit”.

  I never really thought about this very much. Very interesting.

• Over at Attention Span, Ed Gebert deftly captures whatever bit of hasn’t been ruined by television in “Making An Impression”. After an afternoon awaiting truck repair, Ed spent some time thinking about how churches try to impress people with facilities and perks. Are we really looking to glorify Christ or the church?

  In a consumerist church culture, we have to give the people what they want, and that is “spectacle”. Personally, I can’t stand the fact that the Church in America has turned into Wal-Mart: one stop shopping for whatever it is you need, whether its daycare, a coffee shop, a bookstore, or whatever. It’s not that those things are bad in and of themselves, but good churches lose good people because they don’t have all the programs that a bigger church does, and that is bad for Christian culture. The diffusion of churches is good for communities, just like small business is good for the economy.

Arts & Letters

• In his post “David and Achilles: The Openings” Mark Olsen at Pseudo-Polymath has just embarked on what will be a on-going series of essays to be posted on Thursdays comparing and contrasting elements of the “Story of David” and the Iliad. If any other people are interested in joining this endeavor, he’s going to collect essays Sunday nights for this “pseudo-Carnival”.

  Mark’s series is like Oprah’s Book Club, but way smarter. This is the kind of stuff I like to see. I’d be very interested to read more observations on the differences in moral emphasis in the telling of “story” between the two cultures.

• Kevin Holtsberry of Collected Miscellany reviews Born Again and Again by Jon M. Sweeney. He finds that Sweeney’s book is a “thoughtful, tender, and artful look at growing up within a religious community, with all the expectations and experiences that involves.”

  Well, for me the title gives away the problem I have, not with Sweeney necessarily, but with fundamentalism in the first place, and that is, the idea that we need saving over and over again. I understand the sentiment, but sanctification is different than needing continual saving. “Salvation” itself is always described as a moment in time, not a process you need to repeat like rebuilding the carburetor from the ground up after each drive to the 7-11. I think it leads to a real performance-based lifestyle which is why it is common for fundamentalists (which is partly my own tradition as well) to both continually give altar calls, and to frequent the altar at such calls, even though they’ve already accepted Jesus 20 times before. Thus, it’s not surprising to me that Sweeney went from fundamentalism to a vague Episcopalianism later in life: from “all function and no form” to “all form and no function”. From the quotes that Kevin highlights, it looks like there’s a treasure trove of potential religious commentary which a guy of my temperament could make. But, at least he can see the benefits of his upbringing, which is a far cry from most ex-fundamentalists.

• In his blog Law Religion Culture Review, Richard Radcliffe reviews the current theatrical release “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” directed by Biola Univeristy grad Scott Derrickson.

  First, let me say how glad I am that a Christian got a big theatrical release of a movie that has as it’s subtext, Christian theology. This is someday my goal. Having said that, I thought it was technically unrefined (beyond mere nitpickiness) and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what he spent his $20 million on. I figured it had to have been the talent. Casting is the most important thing in a movie, but the casting has to serve the story, and I just don’t think it did. The problem with spending so much money on talent in this case is that he could have told the story just as well or better without them, and used the rest of the money to improve the production value. Unless he had to get some of them attached in the first place in order to get the funding. In which case this movie fell into the typical Hollywood vortex of funding faces instead of stories. And Tinseltown wonders why sales are lagging. In any case, had the director used some less well-known actors, he could have rented some lights and improved better set design, which it needed. The defense lawyer’s house looked like a moderately priced hotel room, which it probably was. See Brian Godawa’s review of it for a “worldview” analysis.

• DeputyHeadmistress of The Common Room reviews the unfortunately puerile children’s stories of Roald Dahl in “Becoming an Adult”.

  I can’t really comment on this since I don’t have kids yet and I don’t collect children’s books, but I agree with you wholeheartedly in principle. The few children’s books I’ve seen of late are not reminiscent of the one’s of old, and I don’t think they challenge the child in useful ways. Before I could read for myself, my mother read poetry to me and made me memorize it: Frost, Poe, Yeats, Longfellow, Field, and the like. That gave me a love for reading, and a love for poetry which has been the basis for many of my other aesthetic loves.

• Cindy Swanson at Notes in the Key of Life presents “When I lay my Isaac down”–my interview with Carol Kent.

  Sounds like a very worthwhile book. For anyone who hasn’t had to face such a crisis, it’s probably a good idea to buy this book ahead of time and read it so you don’t get your emotional teeth kicked in quite as bad when it happens. It’s going in my very large Amazon cart today.

• Jami Leigh shares with us her Friday Photo “Divine”, describing it as a simple picture reminding us of God’s eternal power and divine nature.

  His eyes are baby blue. How beautiful.

• James Jordan of Points of Light shares some beautiful photographs of the North Carolina Outer Banks in his post “Deeply Rooted”.

  A timely meditation. I enjoyed it.

Christian Living & Personal Reflections

• Robert Cooley, jumping N With Both Feet into the deep end, has some words for those who wish to take on the prophet’s mantle in the wake of the Katrina disaster, with his post “Prophets and Doomsayers”.

  To sum up: Shut yer pie holes and go pass out some pie to a hungry person before God makes you eat some of the humble variety.

• In “Evil, Beauty and STFU” (nice title), Kevin Menard of Technogypsy wonders if we talk too much instead of act.

  To sum up: How about a nice cup of STFU to go with that humble pie? Additional comments: Go visit his blog. He cites more obscure references than Dennis Miller and has a strong affinity for the ol’ Kentucky Rye. I personally can’t stand the stuff, but I admire the pedigree.

• Louie Marsh, pastor and blogmeister at Marshian Chronicles, makes landfall close to the same place Robert Cooley and other have done with his post “Let���s Not Lose Our Minds OR Our Religion”

  I think Tony Campolo is a nutball, but that’s just me. Then again, I think Dobson is too, given his proclamations as of late. An aside: what were you doing in Malawi? I did some missions work there 15 years ago and in the last 5 years or so it seems to have become a much more popular missionary destination. I’m just curious. :)

• Lyn Perry of Thought Renewal offers us some “Life Strategies” and asks, “Ready to tackle areas of your life that are holding you back? Surprisingly, Dr. Phil uses some solid biblical principles in his book Life Strategies to help us do just that.”

  Don’t stop there, give us more!

• Kim Bloomer shares with us some “Salt of the Earth” at her blog Sharing Spirit. She says that she’s tried going on her own power and forgotten about the immense power we have as Christians in the Holy Spirit. She says she’s also forgotten lately how we are to be the flavor, the salt of the earth. We can���t be salt if we aren���t going on God���s power in our lives because we���ll run out of steam and lose our flavor.

  What I think is interesting about salt is that it is made from an unstable metal that will spontaneously explode, mixed with an extremely poisonous gas that will kill you dead before you can say “I’ll get you for this Bette Midler!” And we Americans eat, on average over 3 lbs of salt a year. There’s a great book on the subject, which I just started reading. It’s called, appropriately, Salt.

• Phil Threten examines the “Anatomy of a Temptation”. It all starts with an incredulous question….’Did God really say…?’

  And it ends with “But it seemed like a good idea at the time…” Nice post.

• Hal Paxton of The Great Separation discusses “The Dirtiness of Our Pasts”, saying that there are few things more difficult for us as Christians to deal with than our pasts. But there are also few things more wonderful.

  Holding on to one’s past such that it is a barrier to forgiveness is nothing short of pride. When we do this we make God into a liar by saying “Your sacrifice is not enough to redeem this”, and that is pure pride. Isn’t it amazing how pride infects every pore of our being? It is the first and last sin we commit before God, and it is the root of all other sins.

• Hannah at Intellectuelle examines whether she is “Driven or Disciplined”. She debunks the myth that she is a disciplined person and reveal that she is a driven person. Rather than faithfully doing the daily but boring tasks (like exercising or reading through the Bible), I do what seems most interesting to myself.

  I dunno. I think it’s OK to be driven enough to get some stuff out of the way to make time for other things later. That is, in essence, what “schooling” is all about. You may have studied the first few weeks and slacked off the last 3 months, but you also stayed in school for the first part of your life, as opposed to drawing those studies out over the course of your life. I’m also assuming you make the bed now so you don’t have to do it later. Having said that, I’m way more driven than disciplined. I find that I use my driven nature to make up for the fact that deep down I’m a lazy cuss. But, at least I get it done. It could be worse: I could get nothing done.

• Some Tidbits and Treasures are found on Barbara’s blog. This week she shares with us “Today’s Best Question”, which is “How old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you were?”

  At 37, I dress like a 25 year-old, and think like an 80 year-old. My mother at 63, on the other hand, dresses like a 35 year-old, and thinks like a 30 year old. How I admire her.

• In her post “Flashcards and Flashing Pans” Joy McCarran, sporting her new look at Karagraphy writes a short essay on the phenomenon and navigation of flashbacks.

  I could say so much about when my grandfather died in hospice, and I prayed for him. All the glory of his life reduced to a thoroughly unconscious body on a morphine drip. The end of your essay reminded me of the lyrics to the Little Drummer Boy: “Mary nodded/The ox and lamb kept time/I played my drum for Him/I played my best for Him/Then He smiled at me/Pa rum pum pum pum/Me and my drum���. Great essay.

• The Penitent Blogger reflects on being built and rebuilt in God in his post “Rebuilding”.

• In ���Return from ‘Damascus’�Ķ and A Guy Named John���, Suzanette of “Oh How I Love Jesus” blog talks about the closing ceremony of her husband’s (the “sig.other”) spiritual retreat, called Journey to Damascus, and the impact of those four days in his life and that of the other guys and a guy name John.

  The sig.other thing is catchy. I think I’m going to change my email to “husband@sig.other.com”. My wife can have “wife@sig.other.com”. And at the end of our emails we can sign it “kiss noise!”

• Gary at Beneath the Dirty Hood asks “What does Marine boot camp have to do with Jesus Christ?” in his post “The Few. The Proud. The Humble.”

  There are so many lessons for American Christianity in the Marine Corps. A good book that’s very insightful in this regard is Thomas E. Ricks’ Making the Corps.

• Lance Salyers of Ragged Edge offers his first a two-part response to a series of questions about his faith posed by an atheist, in “My Creed (Part I)”.

  Lance gives an honest, thoughtful response to his inquisitor (meaning, one who enquires) which I find refreshing.

• We get to Listen In with Paula Geister through her post “Just Telling It Like It Is”. A small boy models boldness in telling a truthful message and he does it with love.

• David, who seems to have All Kinds of Time to blog (and I don’t anymore), gives us a brief look at two different ways to view waiting for the Lord, in “Wait for the Lord”.

  Interesting. I’ll have to think more about that idea.

Want to see the past Christian Carnivals? Matt Jones has the entire archive here.