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Oh, CanadaBy the St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Jun 10, 2008 at 14:35:9In the 21st century, freedom of speech, long revered as the cornerstone of democratic thought, slowly but consistently is being eroded worldwide. This troubling pattern is not confined to illiberal places such as China, Russia or the Middle East, but increasingly is showing up in nations once thought to be paragons of liberal democracy - even Canada. Rejected WordsBy 9 | May 21, 2008 at 0:23:21“Shouldn’t you say some words?” The humor and the weight of the story hung over me. Dr. David Calhoun, a master storyteller, related a tale of a man who had never tried sweet maple syrup straight from a tree before. The man’s friend offered to rectify the situation, and he accepted. As the man prepared to humble himself by letting his friend pour the sweetness into his mouth, he paused for a moment and asked that question. And it contains the profoundest wisdom; I summarize it thusly: We humans instinctively need to mark the moments of our lives with ceremony, with ritual. Far as the Curse is Found: Viewing the Bible CovenantlyBy Timothy R. Butler | Apr 16, 2008 at 10:22:30The problem that has faced the Evangelical world as it looks towards the Bible is that while we have a very high view of Scripture, by and large, we do not seem to have a very high view of the story it tells. When we look at common ways of reading everything from the beginning text of Genesis to the crucifixion of Christ, from the establishment of the Israelites in Canaan to the final chapters of Revelation, they are often pulled out of context as propositional statements or, worse yet, separate or overriding stories. In his book Far as the Curse is Found, Michael D. Williams lays out a more constructive, Biblically consistent interpretative method that avoids the follies that cause pop-Evangelical interpretative methods to fundamentally miss the wonderful story of the Bible. Sandy FoundationsBy 6 | Apr 7, 2008 at 21:57:40In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was casting a view of God’s ways. He did so as a corrective of a false view, by contrasting it with assumptions the people had about what the Law and Prophets required. They had been taught these assumptions mostly by the Pharisees, whose teaching dominated the synagogues at that time. Their teaching was a pedantic, worldly corruption of the Old Testament, strongly influenced by a system of interpretation developed over three centuries of Hellenistic rationalism, in turn preceded by two centuries of Babylonian and Persian materialism. At the end of His message, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel (ch. 7), Jesus declared His teaching was a reflection of the ancient and eternal truth revealed by God Himself, characterized by a distinctly other-worldly outlook. Any other basis for looking at life was comparable to building on sand.Pilate’s TruthBy Timothy R. Butler | Mar 21, 2008 at 10:55:25What is truth? In three words Pilate asked the question of questions. What is truth? For a moment, the worldly Roman had moved off into something beyond this world. Truth. Descending from the Liberal ArtsBy Timothy R. Butler | Feb 22, 2008 at 1:5:22Paradoxes abound in life. According to Plato, the ideal ruler is one that does not want to rule. According to Jesus, the one who does not value his own life is the one who gets to keep it (Mt. 10:39). It is in a similar vein that if one wishes to know the particulars one must know general knowledge, and to know the general things, one must know the particulars of the “branches of knowledge.” This truth makes it disturbing that our society seems to be ever more hostile to the study of the liberal arts as it seeks after only “useful” knowledge. An Elegy to the Year Now PassingBy Timothy R. Butler | Dec 31, 2007 at 18:51:12A single porch light glows across the night scene from my back window. The wind is blowing gently, but persuasively. A certain sadness seems entwined in this, and yet the warm glow of the Christmas lights that twinkle about me inside pulls me from waxing on too much about the cold I only see, and am not left to survive in this night. Such is 2007 as it bids us farewell. On That DoorBy Timothy R. Butler | Oct 31, 2007 at 21:44:43Four hundred and ninety years ago, an unremarkable Catholic monk posted a sheet of almost one hundred complaints at the place where people posted such things in those days. That would be a church door, and the monk, of course, would be Martin Luther. Unbeknownst to him at the time, he had just split the church into a group that would still be known for its “protesting” of Catholic doctrine a half millennia later: happy birthday, Protestant Church. The Holy Office of ConfessionBy Ed Hurst | Aug 28, 2007 at 21:49:3Most of the time, the word translated “confession” in the Bible appears in the context of owning up to sin. That’s a good word for translating the concept. The Latin word from which we get the English “confess” means “to stand with” — in this case, it means standing with God, as a public endorsement of His declaration we have sinned.Jesus’s Perfected Sign of JonahBy Timothy R. Butler | Apr 6, 2007 at 13:38:42On Good Friday, it is traditional to look at the narrative of that day approximately two thousand years ago when Jesus was crucified by the order of Pontius Pilate and then try to make sense of it. Jesus Himself offered an interpretation of His future suffering that appears in both Matthew and Luke; in it, He chooses to interpret His death and resurrection as “the sign of Jonah.” What could this possibly mean? |
UPDATED: BSD on the DesktopBy Ed HurstIn an extensive multi-part report, OFB's Ed Hurst presents how the power of the FreeBSD operating system can be harnessed for the desktop. Using understandable instructions and relevant tips, Ed provides the tools for mere mortals to enjoy BSD's fabled stability. |
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