After successfully arresting computer viruses in Apple products, Steve Jobs will now stop porn on Apple products. It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s Super Steve!
Read about it here.
Category: Gospel and Culture
Rewriting the Crusades with Rodney Stark
Because the Crusades are often understood within a larger framework that says that Islam is the gentle faith and Christianity the violent one. Karen Armstrong would have us believe that Muhammad was a pacifist.
Take Major Nidal Hassan, the man responsible for the Fort Hood massacre. Had an evangelical Christian of the nutty sort gotten up in front of Army psychiatrists and talked about how much he respected people who shot abortionists, he would have been out of the Army an hour later. But everybody tiptoes around the issue of Islam.
[Clinton] said we had much to be sorry about, and we bore some of the guilt for sending those airplanes plunging into the Twin Towers. Now, Clinton isn’t a nut. He’s not an anti-American. He’s just been miseducated.
Several months after 9/11, former President Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he apologized for the Crusades. He said we had much to be sorry about, and we bore some of the guilt for sending those airplanes plunging into the Twin Towers. Now, Clinton isn’t a nut. He’s not an anti-American. He’s just been miseducated. He’s been told a whole lot of nonsense about the Crusades.
Read the rest of this intriguing interview with Rodney Stark on his new book God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades.
How to Graduate your High School Student
If you think graduating your children from pre-school is hard, just think what it’s like to graduate your teenager from high school, only to be shipped off to college or the armed services. Parents invest so much in their children that they can easily become more than children, more like little gods. Everything revolves around them, your sense of worth, success, and joy.
With such strong, understandable (but woefully satisfactory) temptations, how do you send your children off to school or their next stage in life? Here’s how, from a graduation invitation from a family in our church:
Our young man graduates June 3.
And then he ships out immediately for US Army boot camp on June 6.
We are so very proud of him and put our trust in God for his life.
Our prayers are that Jesus is glorified through Stephen’s life and service.
Although we can never put our trust in comfort or safety, we can place our hope in the unfailing love of Jesus.
We know you will agree with us in your prayers for him as our amazing young man enters this journey
What to Think about Elena Kegan?
What are we to think of Obama’s appointment of Elena Kagan? Who is she? Where does she stand on issues? These are the questions that a lot of people are raising. It’s generally agreed that she is liberal judge, but it’s unclear where she stands on a number of controversial issues. What we do know is that Kagan has an impeccable reputation. She is a consummate legal teacher and brilliant scholar. A real Ivy Leaguer. What’s not to like?
Does She Stand for Anything?
David Brooks of the NY Times expresses an interesting concern. He notes that she’s too even-handed, not risky or opinionated enough. Bland? But is risky an attribute we want in a judge? Perhaps, if risky means applying intellectual comprehension to heart conviction. Standing for something. Brooks concludes his piece by saying:
There’s about to be a backlash against the Ivy League lock on the court. I have to confess my first impression of Kagan is a lot like my first impression of many Organization Kids. She seems to be smart, impressive and honest — and in her willingness to suppress so much of her mind for the sake of her career, kind of disturbing.
Do you Stand for Anything?
Strangely, this critique shares much in common with the bland versions of Christianity in our nation. Intellectual but not opinionated, religious but not risky, standing for nothing. You can be moral, honest, and church-going and suppress the very core of the Christian doctrine—risk-taking love that is so enamored with Christ that you can’t help but live a life of radical sacrifice and generosity. If you’re a Christian, perhaps you should be less concerned about Kagan’s liberal orientation and more concerned about what people would say if you caught the limelight.