I only just discovered goodreads.com in a blurb from World magazine (below). It's great for organizing your reading wish list, keeping track of books you liked, and finding good books. You can find booklists by authors or friends that you know. Douglas Wilson, for example, has rated 1681 books and (briefly) commented on 1357. If you join (or know of a better such forum), please let me know.
Here's the blurb from World: Goodreads, the popular social networking and library cataloguing website for bibliophiles, has released a free iPhone app. Search for books and categorize them in custom virtual bookshelves. Catalog the books you've read, are currently reading, or plan to read in the future. Rate and review books, or start a virtual book club. Don't have an iPhone? You can do all this on the Goodreads website as well (goodreads.com). — Alissa Wilkinson
Monday, April 12, 2010
What evangelicals need from Lutheranism (and vice versa?)
Gene Veith (scholar and journalist whose recent little book God at Work is a great read) writes about a recent post by the late Michael Spencer (a.k.a. Internet Monk), a widely-respected Baptist pastor and blogger who just passed away:
Michael Spencer … was ecstatic about the new resources for theology and spirituality recently published by Concordia Publishing House: the Concordia (the reader’s edition of the Book of Concord), the Treasure of Daily Prayer, and now the Lutheran Study Bible. In the course of his rave review of the latter, he expressed his frustration with Lutheranism, which tends to keep to itself even though its emphases are exactly what the broader Christian and evangelical world needs right now.
…The Calvinist influence in evangelicalism far exceeds the number of actual confessional Calvinists. Lutheran theology would seem to resolve a number of issues that evangelicals are struggling with: how you can believe salvation is by grace alone while also insisting that Christ died for all; how to resolve the conflict between Christianity and culture; how to affirm the heritage of catholic Christianity while also affirming the best of Protestantism; etc., etc.
Michael Spencer … was ecstatic about the new resources for theology and spirituality recently published by Concordia Publishing House: the Concordia (the reader’s edition of the Book of Concord), the Treasure of Daily Prayer, and now the Lutheran Study Bible. In the course of his rave review of the latter, he expressed his frustration with Lutheranism, which tends to keep to itself even though its emphases are exactly what the broader Christian and evangelical world needs right now.
…The Calvinist influence in evangelicalism far exceeds the number of actual confessional Calvinists. Lutheran theology would seem to resolve a number of issues that evangelicals are struggling with: how you can believe salvation is by grace alone while also insisting that Christ died for all; how to resolve the conflict between Christianity and culture; how to affirm the heritage of catholic Christianity while also affirming the best of Protestantism; etc., etc.
Messiah College Brass Choir Concert at Trinity Church
The Messiah College Brass Choir will present a concert at Trinity Presbyterian Church on Friday, April 16, 2010 (at 7:30). The Brass Choir, under the direction of Mike Harcrow, is a group of 24 talented brass players and percussionists. They have been honored with an invitation to perform the following week at the Pennsylvania Music Educators' Association Convention in Pittsburgh, and the concert at Trinity will be the debut of the program to be performed there. Selections will include exciting works by well-known composers Paul Dukas and Serge Prokofiev, George Gershwin and John Philip Sousa, Pennsylvania composer Jack Stamp, and others. There will be section features as well as solo performances by two outstanding young soloists from the Toronto Salvation Army Staff Band who currently attend Messiah College.
See calendar on sidebar for details.
See calendar on sidebar for details.
Google Analytics
I've set up Google Analytics for the Plunder Pile to see if it's serving anyone.
From March 31 to April 11 (mostly over Spring Break), there were a total of 169 visits and 325 page views from 74 different IP addresses.
Some of those are bots and random outside hits. By only looking at IP address from the city of Harrisburg over the same time period, we had 99 visits (just over 8 per day), averaging 5.5 minutes on the site each time.
I know very little about what these stats mean. If anyone would like access to the analytics account, I can pass it on.
From March 31 to April 11 (mostly over Spring Break), there were a total of 169 visits and 325 page views from 74 different IP addresses.
Some of those are bots and random outside hits. By only looking at IP address from the city of Harrisburg over the same time period, we had 99 visits (just over 8 per day), averaging 5.5 minutes on the site each time.
I know very little about what these stats mean. If anyone would like access to the analytics account, I can pass it on.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Christ vs. Witch-hunts
A sober news item thanks to Chip Boyle:
Is One Man's Faith Another's Superstition?
An article by David Gibson writing for The Wall Street Journal.
...Earlier this month, Amnesty International reported that more than 1,000 people were rounded up in Gambia in a government-sponsored witch-hunt, and in Tanzania alone, at least 45 albinos have been murdered since 2007 because popular superstition holds that they are witches.
...Accidental similarities between religion and magic should not lead anyone to confuse the difference in their content. Nor should the focus on witchcraft in places like Africa blind the rest of us to the lures of superstition that continue to cloud our own beliefs.
In Africa, Pope Benedict answered objections that he should leave the superstitious in peace -- arguing that it is no injustice to "present Christ to them and thus grant them the opportunity of finding their truest and most authentic selves, the joy of finding life." That could be said to be the highest goal of any true religion, as opposed to the best that witchcraft has to offer.
Is One Man's Faith Another's Superstition?
An article by David Gibson writing for The Wall Street Journal.
...Earlier this month, Amnesty International reported that more than 1,000 people were rounded up in Gambia in a government-sponsored witch-hunt, and in Tanzania alone, at least 45 albinos have been murdered since 2007 because popular superstition holds that they are witches.
...Accidental similarities between religion and magic should not lead anyone to confuse the difference in their content. Nor should the focus on witchcraft in places like Africa blind the rest of us to the lures of superstition that continue to cloud our own beliefs.
In Africa, Pope Benedict answered objections that he should leave the superstitious in peace -- arguing that it is no injustice to "present Christ to them and thus grant them the opportunity of finding their truest and most authentic selves, the joy of finding life." That could be said to be the highest goal of any true religion, as opposed to the best that witchcraft has to offer.
Impressive Little Tool: Readability
Readability : An Arc90 Lab Experiment from Arc90 on Vimeo.
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