I am honored to be the host of the 29th Christian Carnival. If this is your first time, here you will find a blogging “horn of plenty” by Christian bloggers during the last week, representing a wide variety of opinions from throughout the theological spectrum. This week there were 18 posts. Not a record, but still a healthy showing. And, thanks to all of you who got your submissions in early. Next week’s Carnival will be hosted at Beyond the Rim.

(Note: As is the privilege of the host, and since I have had so little time to do any meaningful blogging on my own these past couple of weeks, I may include a comment or two, which will be in italics underneath.)

Society & Culture
* Retrosexuals R Us by William Meishied of Beyond the Rim. William challenges men to doff the growing cultural image of the metrosexual “girlie man”, and to don the true image of Biblical manhood.

As long as his definition of retrosexuality doesn’t preclude a good shirt, and nice pair of shoes, then I’m in. I think a man, if he doesn’t have fashion sense, should at least go rent some from a friend, because dressing up‚Äîat least sometimes‚Äîis yet another way to give your woman a compliment. Let’s face it: nobody likes to drag along a slob when they go out on the town. At least that’s what my grandparents believe, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to agree with them.

• Charity ‚Äî Why Not To Give from Doc Rampage. What is your responsibility when a professional beggar asks you for money? One wrong response is just to give it to him.

  While I agree with him, in more ambivalent moments I sometimes wonder to myself if Pr. 31:6 wasn’t meant for just such people: “Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.”

Politics & Legislation
* Who Said This? at Neophyte Pundit. NP compares Ron Reagan’s support of stem cell research with No. 40’s long-standing position against abortion, with a couple of links to articles outlining Reagan’s position, one of which is entitled “What Would Reagan Do?”

• Touch Of Life fetal models by Intolerant Elle. True to her title, the Intolerant One takes a look at the Touch of Life fetal models.

  It strikes me as an amazing testament to human ingenuity that we in fact understand more and more what the readers of Ecc: 11:5 did not know at the time: “Just as you don’t know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you don’t know the work of God, who makes everything.” Another note: Elle doesn’t have an “About Me”page (might I suggest one?), but I’m gathering she lives in Alaska. I’ve just got to say, I love Alaska. I spent every summer and every Christmas there from the time I was 6 until I was 18, and I miss it.

Philosophy & Theology
* Christians have No Ground For Self-Glory declares Matt Hall. Who did Christ die for? Do you think that is just an inconsequential debate for theologians? It’s not. Ideas have consequences.

The only thing I would point out is that “classic” Arminianism (meaning, the Arminianism of J. Arminius himself) isn’t so far away from Calvinism as many think. Modern evangelicalism isn’t as much “Arminian” as it is “semi-Pelagian”. Arminius actually agreed with Augustine/Luther on quite a bit. He just believed that after all the Augustinian presuppositions were monergistically fulfilled by God (regeneration, etc.), at the actual moment of choice for Christ, a person could still turn away. Augustine (and Luther, and Calvin) on the other hand said that if God brought you to that point, you could do nothing but choose him, and this was the basis for their disagreement. It is the semi-Pelagianism of John Cassian (who came after Augustine) that is really what most Evangelicals believe today. This states that not only did human beings not inherently and altogether lose their ability to choose Christ, but that regeneration comes after their choice (i.e., God regenerates those who choose him). This is a very important difference.

• Eschatology by Jeremy Pierce of Parablemania. Jeremy reviews scriptures and concepts regarding the end times that he sees as having fairly solid biblical support, with some commentary about each of the major views. As Jeremy states in his introduction, reading this post requires some understanding of the terms.

  One thing I’ve found is that the quickest way to find out a person’s theological framework is to ask them about their eschatological beliefs. Because eschatology is almost always the sum of a person’s other theological beliefs, just having them describe what they think about the end times will tell me volumes about their entire worldview without them having to say much else.

• The Miraculous Points to Truth by Jay over at Deo Omnis Gloria. Jay elucides how just as in Jesus’ time, miracles still point to the truth today. Jesus performed miracles so that people would know He was who He claimed to be. In contemporary times, miracles still occur that point to the truth of who God is, and where He can be found.

  This material would make a good start for a Catholic-Protestant symposium. I’ve always felt that the Catholic church has a much better system for determining whether or not a miracle actually occurred than Evangelical Protestants have. In fact, the latter have virtually no system to speak of, besides one’s own personal belief that something was a miracle, and this is (and has been) hardly sufficient to sustain an overarching belief in them.

• God’s Eternity by Rebecca Writes. One of a series of posts looking at the attributes of God. In this post Rebecca examines the eternity of God: what it means, and what it means for us.

  Aside from it’s social subtext, a book I like recommending is Flatland by Edwin Abbott. It deals with the concept of multiple dimensions, of which time is one, in a very simple manner, and is quite illuminating. And, it only costs $1.50. Give some to your friends!

• My contribution for this week is a collection visual charts depicting the 4 major views of free will and predestination. Review and commentary appreciated.

Church Life & Polity
* The “Me” Generations by Dianne Roberts of Crossroads. Dianne ruminates over our culture that has become completely child-centered in the last 50+ years, even in the church, and how it might not be such a bad idea to let a few of the bad apples go, so the rest of the them can stay fruitful.

I know this is radical, but I would say go further and dispense with youth groups altogether. [The rest of this comment I’ve left on Dianne’s blog, due to its length. It’s a standard stump speech of mine anyway.]

• New Book on Old Secret at Reasons Why. Who doesn’t want to take vengance on their enemies? Release the power of God by praying “The Prayer of Sampson”.

  Oy! He shouldn’t have published that it was satire. I would have loved to see the comments on his post then!

• Our Bible Study Heritage gets unearthed by David Dunlap at The Bible Archive. David examines the The “Plymouth Brethren”, and how through their organization and leading of small Bible studies (or, “reading meetings”) across England, they changed the spiritual and intellectual landscape of evangelicalism in England and America in the mid-19th Century.

  One thing I really don’t like about contemporary Bible study is it’s “What do you feel about this passage?” methodology, which I remember very clearly in Campus Crusade, and which I was kicked out of because I disagreed with it. I know many people who go to these kinds of studies, and after 10 or 15 years, it seems like they don’t know any more than they did 10 or 15 years previous. It is one thing to try to get people to learn “how” to think, which is what I believe the pursuit of learning should ultimately teach, but it is another thing to have the blind lead the blind.

• The Lord’s Day or Wal-Mart’s? queries Earl Appleby at Times Against Humanity. What has the commodification of all-that-is-under-the-sun done to The Lord’s Sabbath? What has it done to us?

  I love the fact that things are open on Sunday, but boy does it irk me when I have to work on Sunday (which, unfortunately, happens more than infrequently)!

Personal Reflections
* The Club by Elena LaVictoire at My Domestic Church. Elena writes movingly about the many “clubs” that people belong to: the single, the married, those with one child, those with more than one child. But there is another “secret” club that people don’t much talk about and which has terribly expensive dues: those who have lost a child.

My father died in 1990, and still 14 years later there are three days a year that I am at a loss as to what to say to my grandmother, who only had one child to lose and lost him: Mother’s day, and the day of my father’s birth, and the day of his death. On those days she still cries as if he was born and died yesterday. Elena’s post gives me a little window into my grandmother’s still very present grief, which is of a very different quality than my own, and which has become much more muted over time.

• Domine, ad quem ibimus? queries Karen of From The Anchor Hold. Karen offers a prayer/reflection on John 6:67-69 (”Will you also go away?”); about those times when God’s clear command makes no kind of sense at all.

• In his Wanderings of A Postmodern Pilgrim Barry Home questions the value of Filling Your Barns With Self. He reflects upon the parable of the Rich Man, noting “It’s amazing how the parables are never willing to leave me alone.”

  Whenever the song “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” is played in church, I purposefully sing it in the reverse (”It’s not about You, Jesus; And all this is for me. For my glory and my fame, it’s not about You. As if I should do things your way…”) to remind me what a cakehole full of crap I offer to God, more often than not, in worship and prayer. Pardon my French.

• The poem Baby Feet was submitted by Mark over at CowPi Journal. Mark offers a poetic allegory for how we should remember our child-like joy in Christ.

• I Had A Dream by Sammy over at [rough draft]. Sammy thinks his subconscious fears of being lonely and orthodox in a mainline denomination are creeping into his dreams. This is just one that he had recently (the premise of the other one is that the red sox traded all their players, except him).

  I know that music. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.