Yearly Archives: 2008
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Best Albums of 2008
15. In Extremo – Sængerkrieg Medieval metal Mediocre as far as In Extremo goes, but it’s got its moments. The acoustic companion album is actually pretty good, though. 14. Vestigial – Translucent Communion Dark ambient/tribal I don’t generally go for true ambient music, but this is just dense and dynamic enough to be interesting. 13. [...] -
The Necessity of Depravity
Idly scouring the internet as I sometimes do, I came across an article entitled 50 NES Quotes You Should Know. Though the article succeeded in broadening my library of references to old school video games beyond “Do a barrel roll” and “Abort/Retry/Fail?”, the main revelation came from an offhand comment beneath the fourth page of the article:
Christianity says that people are inherently good and that deep down we all want to do the right thing. Video games prove the opposite is true.
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Pat Robertson’s Year End Prophetic Review
Pat Robertson, January 2008: “he said oil would reach $150 a barrel – the price hit $100 on Wednesday – with the dollar continuing to lose value in 2008.”
Reality, October 2008: “Crude has now fallen about 40% since surging to an all-time record $147.27 a barrel on July 11.”…
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The Auto Crisis and Car Commercials
Surely by now every American is aware of the collapsed credit market and the imploding American auto industry. So what are the automakers telling us to quell our fears?
(WARNING: The sample of commercials is non-representative and based on two nights of watching an hour of TV.)Honda was subtly and soothingly reassuring, with a hypnotically calm voice:
“Rest assured that now, as always, you can still get low APR financing.*”
*for well qualified buyers… -
Thankfulness
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I think it would be a good idea to take a look at thankfulness. What should we be thankful for? Are there things we should not be thankful for? I’ve insinuated before that material prosperity is not necessarily a blessing. Should we nevertheless be thankful for it?
Note that the first and last beatitudes are for those without any claim to prosperity. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:2), and “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10). These are blessings which preclude the rich (one would assume that the persecuted generally forfeit their wealth). Obviously there is a special blessing for the poor, but is that a complement to a blessing of wealth, or is wealth not a blessing at all?…
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Campus Crossroads
Campus Crossroads is a campus church at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We want to redefine church to our generation. For too long we have been taught that church is a place you go. It is a building; it is an organization. Biblically, the church is none of these things. It is [...] -
The Nature of Christ
The description of the Trinity in the Athanasian Creed was frustrating for me for a long time. What does it mean to say that there is one God with three Persons? It’s all well and good to say “eternally begotten”, but it’s almost a senseless phrase. In fact, the whole creed is full of concepts that make very little sense on their own: without explanation, it’s a very unhelpful way to think about the Trinity.
Fortunately, there is explanation…
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Divine Delegation and Free Will
Creation is such that God is the ultimate good for it. Good is thus absolute with respect to creation as we know it. But is it absolute with respect to God? That is, could God create something such that God Himself is not its ultimate good?…
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The Pre-Existent Will of God
I’ve referenced John Piper’s proof of a selfish God a lot in the past few articles, and once again it is the starting point of this one. This is posited as the motive of God working through history in the redemption of mankind, that His mercy and justice may simultaneously be exemplified.
But does this mean that God is bound by higher notions of ‘glory’ and ‘good’? It would certainly seem so if we are to apply the self-interest model of free will to God. We are bound in our behavior by our knowledge, our values, and our interests. Obviously God has infinite knowledge and thus entirely correct values, but does God have interests? Being omnipotent, can He ever improve His lot?…
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Blessing
As Christians, we have faith that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). As straightforward as this seems, the concept of good itself is more problematic than it ought to be: what is good in the first place, and what does Paul mean by good here?
I cannot count how many times I’ve heard prayers thanking God for placing us in a country where we are free to worship Him. It’s a favorite theme of Patriotic Evangelicalism…
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Don’t Vote
No, seriously. As wonderful as civic duty is, there’s also civic responsibility. If you plan on voting in November, answer the following questions out loud before reading on: Who are the two major party candidates? Who are you voting for this November? Why?
If you could not answer the third question, don’t vote. If your answer for the third question was “I can relate to him” or “the other guy’s eletist”, do not vote…
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Beauty
The phrase “The beauty of the Lord” is thrown around a lot in Christian circles, especially in song. It’s a wonderful thing to sing about, but what is the beauty of the Lord? How can it be appreciated when there is nothing of Him for us to see but His creation?
For a long time I had no idea what it meant to marvel at the beauty of the Lord. I had not even but the vaguest idea of what beauty really meant. In retrospect, my first glimpse was the testimony of a missionary who had been working with Campus Crusade at various universities. He recounted the story of a grad student he met one day, who told him though she was not a Christian, she knew “there must be a God, because…
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Standing in Solomon’s Shoes
The Dream of Solomon, by Luca Giordano The concepts behind the recent article What Is Free Will? may seem pretty out there – they are very abstract at points, and it’s easy to question the value of plumbing to such depths. But the framework also has intensely practical benefits for the believer who is open [...] -
The Shortcomings of Efficient Market Theory (And What They Mean for Investors)
the efficient-market hypothesis asserts that [prices in] financial markets already reflect all known information. It further states that it is impossible to consistently outperform the market by using any information that the market already knows, except through luck. -Wikipedia, Efficient Market Hypothesis Efficient Market Theory holds that because all investors are rational, this requires that [...] -
Neither Party Stands for Change
Change is the official buzzword of the 2008 Presidential Election. Everyone likes to throw it around: Obama started the craze with a series of high-minded-sounding but empty slogans, and now the word has even been co-opted by John McCain, seeking to recover his maverick image. But what exactly are we changing from? Partisan politics and [...] -
The Origin of Sin
The goal of this article is to apply the ideas behind What Is Free Will? to the theme of A Humble or a Haughty Spirit. Having read both of these will be helpful in reading this article, as I justify in those articles some of the assumptions that I will take for granted in this [...] -
What Is Free Will? (Or, Does the Nominal Believer Really Believe?)
The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. -Wikipedia, Free Will Rational agents, by definition, act based on what they know and believe in order to maximize their expected total enjoyment(/pleasure/utility/etc.). Though intuitively it would seem that not everyone is rational, the definitions [...] -
George Bush and the Death of American Constantinianism
Or, How God Works Through History to Suppress Bad Theology. The history of the Church over the past few centuries may be surprising to many who consider the world to be in a perpetual state of moral decline. The 18th and 19th Centuries were particularly dark times for Protestantism and Evangelicalism worldwide. Having fully accepted [...] -
Epta Astera
Epta Astera is a gregorian folk metal band based in Chapel Hill, whose entire branding, including cover art and web design, were done by me. This is a redesign for their second album, SALIGIA, which features cathedral architecture on the front, and the logo prominently displayed. Like the last design for Ero Cras, the header [...] -
From Whence Religious Truth?
With Postmodernism in full swing, it almost seems as if new religions are springing up faster than new followers can be made. Especially hot on the market is custom religion – tailored from an eclectic mix to fit your own needs and desires; something deep enough to make you look sophisticated (“spiritual but not religious”), [...] -
A Humble or a Haughty Spirit?
I was out driving the other day with the radio turned to a Christian radio station, when a song lyric jumped out at me: Because you would rather die / Than to ever live without me. Lines like this have never sat well with me, but I always attributed my discomfort to a question of [...] -
Comparative Government: A Thought Experiment
The news has been filled recently with stories like minimum wage jumping 70¢, or California banning trans-fats in restaurants, all ostensibly for the sake of the common employee/consumer. Things which sound nice and warm and fuzzy on the surface – who doesn’t want to help out the bottom rung of society, or to make Californian [...]