What really never ceases to amaze me, especially after reading Schaeffer’s works, is that Christians still fail to realize that we are no longer living in a Christian nation (if we ever did), and that we no longer have a Christian culture. It is a sub-culture, at best.

Our country, and our culture, are in the grip of subjectivism, humanism, and a rebellion against all convention. We are NOT in the grip of the Holiness and Majesty of the Lord God, Omnipotent. We are in the grip of a worldview which says “live all you can, cause you just live once… you have the right to do whatever you want” – to quote a DC Talk song from a ways back.

What have we become?

Self-indulgent people.

What have we become?

Tell me, where are the righteous ones?

What have we become?

In a world, degenerating…

What have we become?

On to Schaeffer.
Read the rest of this entry

I sometimes wonder. Did God create our overdeveloped sense of irony in order to give us a concrete example of how He works? I know – it’s an odd question. Here’s why I ask it, though.

Often, in life, He answers our prayers at precisely the point we would never have expected it. He works in exactly the manner we wouldn’t have worked. He uses the people we never would have used, to do what we never would have imagined doing. He does it on purpose, I believe.

He has an unknown woman driving tent stakes through foreign army commander’s temples. A coward leading an army selected by their mode of drinking from a stream. A treacherous prophet warned by a donkey, of all things. A strongman slaughtering thousands with the jawbone of a donkey. A boy with a sling, killing a giant, when an entire army sits quaking in their armor. A rebellious prophet swallowed, and vomited up, by a whale. Then, whining about the fact God didn’t kill everyone he was assigned to preach the Word to. Oh, and whining about a stupid plant more than the thousands he was assigned to save. He reduces the mighty king of Babylon to a raving beast. Shows the wisest man in history as the most prone to massive folly.

God knows irony.

I’ll bet some of you are wondering – what the heck has happened to me?

Well, it’s a long story, actually. Yet, to be honest, it’s one I’ve been scrapping for time to tell you. In fact, I’m transcribing from a notebook that I wrote it in, for transfer to the blog 😀 (Which is how I often write posts. I jot them down in my ever-present notebook, and expand them on the blog.)

So, anyway, as I referred to in my previous post – I met a girl. My pastor’s wife played matchmaker, actually. She was referred to me, because she had a computer problem. Or three. So, I fixed her computer, and she got my email address through that – which ends in razorskiss.net… My pastor’s wife saw us talking, and decided we made a cute couple…
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Ok, ok, I haven’t been blogging. At all.

I have a new girlfriend – who will soon become a fiancee. And who I am spending an inordinate amount of time with. At the expense of blogging…

Hey, the hours have to come from somewhere…

Conviction:

letters from babylon has this gem for us:

But one gray-haired lady didn’t buy it. She stuck a finger in his chest and said, “You’re fooling everybody but God and me.”

Go read the rest. I have, and we all have, a sort of double life. Who are we trying to fool? Yes, for a certain someone – this did convict me for that reason. We both know why – and I’m sure you agree.

Found

Blue Goldfish nails 21 Theses to his blog

View from the Pew awards a Clewie for conspicuous misue of a religious term….

A blog I think deserves mentioning: This is not for You – go check it out.

Matt Friedeman’s In the Fight always picks great articles to comment on. Take this one, for example…

Disgusted…

Mumon goes off the deep end again. Unsurprisingly.

Ok, I blogged something. And I’m back reading through The Great Evangelical Disaster.

So expect at least a little something from there, soon. I hope.

Oh, and Vox is up.

Same domain, new server, new database.

And there was much rejoicing.

IS UP!

Now… I want to give a couple of shoutouts.

One, to my brother. He freaking rocks. His graphics, as usual, are insanely good.

Two, to Catez, from AllThings2All, and to Tim, from Church Voices. They both helped a great deal.

Three, to the rest of the Vox Team. They rock, too.

Now – the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Vox Apologia XI. Click on the graphic below – and get ready to have your freakin’ socks knocked off. Oh, and feel free to explore, after you read. That’s the idea.

Hear the bells ringing, they’re singing
That we can be born again!
Hear the bells ringing, they’re singing
Christ is risen from the dead!
The angel, up on the tombstone
Said He is risen; just as He said!
Quickly now, go tell His disciples
That Jesus Christ is no longer dead!
Joy to the world!
He is risen hallelujah!
He is risen hallelujah!
He is risen hallelujah, hallelujah!

Joy to the world, He has risen, hallelujah!
He’s risen, hallelujah!
He’s risen, hallelujah!
Hallelujah!

– 2nd Chapter of Acts, Easter Song (Album: With Footnotes)

The subject is: Answering Objections: God’s Way?.

2 things I want to note.

First: These will be the inaugural posts in the new setup for Vox Apologia – which will be revealed this edition. The “suprise” is almost ready – and I think you’re going to like it. So, please, submit your entries, will you?

Second: I’d like to expand on the topic a bit.

The “objections” refers to objections to Christianity, to belief in Christianity, or objections to aspects of God which are barriers to the above.

ie: The Argument From Evil.

How do we respond to arguments about, or objections made about, God, Following Him, or the like – and do it in a way that honors God? This is a crucial subject – because it is something every apologist has to engage in, at one point – and when we do, it must honor God, or we are doing it in vain.

I’d like to hear your thoughts. I will certainly share mine.

Welcome: To the Vox Apologia Symposium X. This is edition 10, which means the Vox Apologia Symposium has reached 2 1/2 months running now! I had no idea it would receive such an awesome response from you all – and I am grateful you’ve participated thus far! I look forward to many, many more great symposiums in the future, as well.

Today’s host is, unfortunately, me again.

I WAS going to have a surprise for you.. but I couldn’t pull it off just yet. However, like last week, the graphic is a preview of the surprise…

The graphic you see is by my brother, Paul, aka “BrainCatalyst”. I hope you stop by his site, when you’re through. I enjoy his work – in fact – it’s all over my site. Including the banner, you see above.

Today’s subject is “Presuppositional Apologetics: Target Audience”. I was very specific, because this is something I’m not overly familiar with. So… I figured that there may be others who are not, either.

There were some absolutely GREAT entries this week. Only two of them – but they were excellent counterpoints – and took completely different approaches.

Next Week! The host will be at a surprise location. The subject is “Answering Objections: God’s Way?” Send entries HERE, no earlier than Thursday, March 24th, no later than midnight EST, Sunday, March 27th.	Graphics courtesy of: My brother, and a graphics guru.	Got Defense? Join Vox Apologia! “being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence”
The Vox Apologia is a weekly symposium, conducted on a “thematic” basis. It includes blog entries based around a single theme, in order to garner varying perspectives – which will be assembled, as time passes, as a database of sorts. Each edition of the Vox Apologia is ‘guest hosted’ with commentary from the guest host, relevant to each submitted article, where possible, and a graphic – if desired. Participants need not be members of the Apologetics Aggregator, nor do the entry URLs submitted have to be those of the participant. Submission guidelines and a short FAQ are here. Credit goes to Gary Cruse, of The Owner’s Manual, for the presentation concept. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

The next Vox, unfortunately, will be hosted here once again. I’ll have it up tomorrow morning, once I get back from work.

I got tapped to work tonight… again. Which means that I worked Saturday night, had church this morning, had 3 hours or so of sleep between church services – and now have to go to work again. So, obviously… I haven’t had much time. (For those who don’t know, I have a new job, on graveyard shift – as well as a couple other projects and personal concerns which have severely curtailed my blogging. So, please excuse my lack of posting lately.)

Which was the time I WAS going to use to finish that surprise I talked about. I *should* have that surprise up and ready by the next Vox – and running how it’s supposed to be. Until then… please be patient, and thank you for your consideration! I do appreciate it.

I know several of you have left comments that I really should reply to… and I will. I have projects I *need* to get done – and they are my first priority at the present time. Blogging was, to be honest, supposed to be a part-time hobby to begin with. For a while, it became almost an all-consuming thing, due to the need I felt to organize and link together the apologetic bloggers, and to seek out and find as many as I could, so you could all meet each other. That has been my passion for the last few months – and still is. When my time constraints returned to normal, I had to set something up to continue the ministry I started, with a smaller time “budget” – and that’s what I’m trying to get set up. So… please be patient. In doing so, I’ve run into those time restraints (as well as discovering more…), while simultaneously trying to cover several other projects.

In other words… neither my available time, nor my time management skills have been up to the task. So, I apologize for not coming through on my promises on time.

Once this is done, I’m hoping we’ll have a newer, better Daily Cut style series, an awesome home for the Vox Apologia Symposium, and a reference library for apologetics blogging. Circumstances just haven’t let me accomplish everything I had planned to do, in the time I had to do them. I’ve barely blogged at all in the past few weeks! I will get back to blogging, and to “normal” (albeit with a bit less time, which, honestly, has been a long time coming :D) soon – but, in the meantime, please be patient. I really think you’ll like the results coming from my recent hiatus.

Once again.. stand by for updates. And thank you, as always, for visiting my humble abode.

Thanks!
~RK