"The Making of an Atheist" book has arrived

As you know, I will be part of a blog book tour involving Dr. Jim Spiegel's latest book, The Making of an Atheist. I explained how the blog book tour works at my previous post on this matter.

I must say, I was starting to worry, because up until yesterday, I had not received the book yet, and I am due to post my review of Dr. Spiegel's book and do an online interview with him by 1-3 April. I really didn't want to do a rushed job and so was concerned about the arrival of the book.

Well, I am glad to let you know, the book arrived today and I will start working through the book immediately. So, look out for my review and interview with Jim around 1 April.

I promise you, no April Fool's jokes!

Son of Islamic Hamas leader converts to Christianity

Read about this story at FoxNews or at WorldNetDaily.

Tell DSTV not to launch anti-family channel

I have just received an action email from Africa Christian Action. DSTV is in the process of surveying their subscribers concerning a possible new pornographic channel on their bouquet. Please act on this action mail. It is below in full. Please let them know that a pornographical channel is unacceptable. If they want a pornographical channel, then they need to include it in its own separate bouquet!

Survey for pastors on pastoral ministry

I have just designed a survey for pastors at my website on Pastoral ministry in the 21st century.

If you are a pastor, please complete the survey questions and encourage other pastors to also complete it. There are only 31 questions and should not take long. The survey was launched on 21 February 2010 and will most probably run for several months.

Grudem's new book, "Politics - According to the Bible" available September 2010

Wayne Grudem's new book, Politics - According to the Bible will be released in September 2010. I know that there are many Christians who have been waiting for this book.

Dr. Grudem did a series of classes based on his forthcoming book at the Scottsdale Bible Church. You will find some class notes and mp3s of the classes here.

Benny Hinn's wife files for divorce

Trouble in paradise! Suzanne Hinn filed for divorce in Orange County Superior Court on February 1, citing irreconcilable differences. They have been married for more than 30 years. They separated on 26 January 2010.

Where can this story be found?

USA Today

LA Times

Huffington Post

In a related post for South Africa see Pastor Ray McCauley to divorce... again!

The Doctrine of the Word of God

Many Christians today will probably not be able to articulate anything meaningful concerning the Doctrine of the Word of God. The blame for that I lay squarely at the door of man y of our churches today. They hardly ever broach theological subjects and as a result our "heavenly citizens" are theologically and doctrinally illiterate!

However, there are men out there who would rather see the church grow in its understanding of God and His Word. One such man is Dr. John M. Frame, Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida. He has put a short  treatment on this subject on the web called The Doctrine of the Word of God. It is worth reading what Dr. John Frame writes.

Brian McLaren's A New Kind of 'Heretical' Christianity

I am not going to give a review of Brian McLaren's new book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Reforming the Faith. The problem is not that these ten questions are actually reforming the faith, but that Brian McLaren is doing his darndest to transform the faith into the faith he has concocted in his own mind. The reason I will not be giving a review is that I have enough books to read already.

Anyway, Kevin DeYoung has started a multi-part review of the book with a blog post called Christianity and McLarenism. DeYoung writes:

STOP Human Trafficking now!

This is a cross-post from my other blog, but I think it is important enough to repeat!

Human Trafficking is picking up almost daily here in South Africa with the run-up to the 2010 World Cup Soccer tournament. Unscrupulous, evil and completely depraved people are stealing, confusing and conning unsuspecting women and children under false pretenses into becoming sex slaves, child labourers, soldiers and more.

STOP (Stop Trafficking Of People) kicked off their Public Service Announcement campaign recently against human trafficking. STOP's incredibly important campaign kicked off amid increased activity in the illegal sex industry in South Africa and abroad, especially with illegal brothels sprouting up in residential areas across the country.

STOP has created some videos that are available for viewing exactly to combat human trafficking.

"The Making of an Atheist" Blog Book Tour is now underway!

As I announced in my previous post about "The Making of an Atheist" Blog Book Tour, Dr. Jim Spiegel has reached out to several bloggers to be part of his Blog Book Tour to promote his new book, The Making of an Atheist.

The tour has started and it will be very enlightening to read each review/interview. Here is the complete schedule:

Raising pastors or leaders?

One thing that is really bothering me in the modern church is that pastors are no longer shepherds of the flock, but rather have become managers within a "churchy" corporate environment. There are all kinds of programmes to raise leaders in the church, and it makes me wonder what happened to the instructions of Jesus to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." (Mt 28:19-20)

Every week day afternoon a local Christian radio station plays a John Maxwell piece that is about 2 minutes long. I have been listening to this on and off for some time now, and I am yet to hear him quote the Scriptures or explain anything about the Scriptures. It is this constant droning about leadership principles and what good leaders are made of.

Misuse of words from the Bible

You have probably heard it before. God's power works like dynamite in and through us. Dynamite comes from the Greek word δυναμις, and so God's power is like dynamite.

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but when the writers of the New Testament wrote the New testament, they never thought of dynamite. The stuff wasn't even around yet. You see, dynamite comes from the Greek δυναμις and not the other way round! So, by assigning the meaning of dynamite to the Greek δυναμις is giving the meaning of a derivative to the original. That is backward and leads to real bad theology and doctrine!

Bill Mounce deals with just this type of an issue in his blog post Are We God's Poem? Find out what he has to say about the Greek term related to work!

Adrian Warnock interviews Sam Storms

Adrian Warnock has recently interviewed Dr. Sam Storms. He posted the interview in 3 parts:

INTERVIEW – Sam Storms on His Books About 2 Corinthians
INTERVIEW – Sam Storms Turns The Tables On Me
Sam Storms On Pastoring As A Reformed Charismatic

The truth and life

I have heard so many times that Christians would say that theology or doctrine has nothing to do with how we live. When finer points of doctrine are highlighted they would simply say: "That's just semantics!" Somehow there has arisen some kind of disconnect between doctrine and the way we live our lives.

Martin Downes has written a thought provoking blog post that addresses exactly this issue.

"Now, in reality, there is no gulf between truth and life because they never can be, and never are, divorced. The question is not whether we are living in the light of doctrines, but what doctrines are we living in the light of? What view of God, what view of the world, ourselves, sin, redemption, grace, the last things, are we being shaped by even when we are talking about separation between doctrine and life?"

Read Martin's post called Walking in the truth.

Do you feel misunderstood?

Have you ever been misunderstood? It happens to all of us at some stage in our lives.

Do you think Jesus was misunderstood? Sure He was! The Jews were convinced that He was going to physically break down the temple.

Of course, children are misunderstood all the time, especially when they are still small, before they have mastered the art of reasoning and explanation. Heck, some adults haven't learnt that yet.

This teacher obviously did not have a clue!

Making of an Atheist Blog Book Tour

Jim Spiegel, Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University has written a new book, The Making of an Atheist. In order to promote his book he will be doing a blog book tour in which his book will be reviewed and/or he will be interviewed by several bloggers from around the internet. Jim is a blogger himself and will announce the full schedule from his own blog as to when reviews and/or interviews will appear in the blogosphere. I am privileged to be one of the bloggers asked by Jim to be part of the blog tour for his book.

A preliminary blog book tour schedule has been made available to the bloggers, but these dates cannot be released yet since the participating bloggers must still agree with the schedule. As soon as the dates have been finalized I will make them available from my blog.

The following table contain the list of bloggers that will participate:

Blog Name	Blogger
Cloud of Witnesses	Chris Reese
Apologetics.com	Rich Park
Truthbomb Apologetics	Chad Gross
Triablogue	Peter Pike
Mike Austin's blog	Mike Austin
The Seventh Sola	Joel Griffith
EPS Blog	Steve Cowan
Doug Geivett's Blog	Doug Geivett
Apologetics 315	Brian Auten
Just thinking...	William Dicks
Oversight of Souls	Ray van Neste
Constructive Curmudgeon	Doug Groothuis
A-TeamBlog	Roger Overton

The blog book tour will start somewhere mid-February.