Monthly Archives: December 2007

Top Pages for 2007

Here are the most popular Thinking Christian blog posts of 2007, based on number of times they were visited: 1. The Golden Compass Series — Many other websites linked to these posts, so several of them were near the top in popularity. 2. Book Review: Kingdom Triangle by J. P. Moreland 3. The Beauty of …

December 31, 2007 – 5:05 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Miscellanea | Comments (1)

How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

Can you keep your New Year’s resolutions in 2008? Have you tried in past years? How did you do? Most of us give up long before January ends. It’s surprisingly difficult, isn’t it, to make a decision about our personal habits and stick with it. Can we actually improve ourselves? The answer is no, we …

December 31, 2007 – 8:21 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Tagged , , | Comments (16)

Pagan Christianity?

Book Review Frank VIola and George Barna say the post-apostolic Church Fathers, Augustine, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley and others like them were desperately wrong. They were wrong, not in their doctrines, but in their church practice, which was far off track–and very harmfully so. That’s quite a serious list of …

December 30, 2007 – 9:33 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (28)

“Suspicions and Evidence”

From MikeGene at Telic Thoughts: The debate about evolution and intelligent design eventually comes down to demands for evidence. Yet evidence is simply data that are interpreted in the light of previous experience and belief. What’s more, evidence comes in different flavors. For example, the type of evidence that might be used to guide a …

December 29, 2007 – 2:32 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science | Comments (5)

Equal-Text Bible in a Year Plan

Here’s an entirely different Bible-in-one-year plan, designed to give you the same amount of reading every day. It’s based on page numbers, not chapters and verses, and it’s customizable to your Bible. It works best with straight-text Bibles; study Bibles with their varying amounts of text on each page won’t give you an equal amount …

December 29, 2007 – 8:55 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Comments Off

“Revolutions in Worldview”

From Between Two Worlds, with help from commenters on that post, several very intriguing items for reading: Andrew Hoffecker has edited a collection of essays called Revolutions in Worldview: Understanding the Flow of Western Thought. Related stuff available online for free: A publisher’s resource page Large portions of the book An entire book by Vern …

December 28, 2007 – 8:53 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science, The Faith | Comments Off

What Does “Faith” Mean?

“Can I Just Define ‘Faith’ However I Please?” Michael Patton asked this question at the blog of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries. We’ve discussed the definition of faith here before; there were even comments saying that Christian should be held to the dictionary definition of faith (whatever that may be, whichever dictionary one might choose to …

December 27, 2007 – 5:45 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Comments (3)

Christian Carnival CCIV

Posted already, the day after Christmas, at Deep Bible Study.

December 26, 2007 – 4:46 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Miscellanea | Comments Off

Merry Christmas!

We’re off to church in a few minutes, and the time to express a greeting is all too short. I’ll say it anyway: Merry Christmas to you, and may God richly bless you! And for your reading enjoyment: resources on Christmas from Mark D. Roberts.

December 24, 2007 – 6:05 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Comments (2)

“Christianophobia” and “Secular Fundamentalism” Amongst Christians

Jim Jordan at Moral Science Club says, It is our own [Christians'] folly that we worry that non-Christians will be offended by Christian expressions of faith. This hesitancy in Christians, me included, reveals a stubborn habit that it is somehow better to say or do nothing than point someone to Christ. Again we think it …

December 24, 2007 – 8:00 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Comments (9)