Lame Duck Nightmare

Commentator Charles Krauthammer has made some scary predictions about what a lame-duck Democratic congress could and possibly would do after being slaughtered in the upcoming November elections. Read the article here.

DeYoung Reviews Platt's Radical

Kevin DeYoung has recently written a review of David Platt's new book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. As one who has been a bit suspicious of the new call for "radical Christianity," I appreciate DeYoung's balanced but serious criticism. You can read the review here, together with a charitable response by Platt himself.

ARC Podcast

The Apologetics Resource Center (to which I belong) has started a new monthly podcast entitled Faith, Truth, and a Can o' Worms. Our first cast discusses, among other things, the question, "Is Islam a religion of peace?" Here's the iTunes address:

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/faith-truth-and-a-can-o-worms/id378689415

Colson on Avatar

I want to encourage all readers to take a look at Charles Colson's blog today entitled, "Waiting by the Phone: Avatar and Salvation from Beyond." He provides a short but very poignant Christian assessment of the recent Avatar film. Here's the link:

http://www.informz.net/pfm/archives/archive_956798.html

New Name for Blog

Hey, Here's an idea for your few readers out there. Help me come up with a new name for this blog. I've never really liked "Cowan Chronicles"--it's kinda lame and it's not a chronicle anyway. Ideas???

Blogging Blues

I've decided that if I'm gonna have a blog, I oughta post new stuff on it more often. When I first started this blog, I had a good amount of stuff to post, but as any readers I have out there know, it's defintely slowed down in the last couple of years. I really do think that blogging is a good forum for discussing important things and getting out one's ideas. Of course, it presupposes, too, that one has good ideas in the first place that others will want to read (though the lack of good ideas doesn't seem to prevent many people from blogging away almost everyday!). And I suppose that maybe it's my conscientiousness about wanting to make sure that I have something worthwhile to say and not just put out a bunch of meaningless drivel that keeps me from posting more often. Well, I do really want to post more often and I am determined to do so. I hope to have something worthwhile to say when I do, too, though of course I can't make any promises. If any of you out there have some suggestions for things I might talk about on this blog, please feel free to make them.

Debate and Apologetics Conference

The Apologetics Resource Center and Southeastern Bible College will host their second annual apologetics conference on January 29 & 30, 2010. The conference theme this year is: God: His Existence and Nature. The conference will kick off on Friday night with a DEBATE on the existence of God featuring Doug Geivett of Talbot School of Theology and Bruce Russell of Wayne State University. On Saturday, Doug Geivett and the ARC staff (including yours truly)will offer a slate of lectures on various apologetics topics, primarily focused on tough questions related to the nature of God (e.g., Is the trinity illogical?, If God knows the future, can I be free?, Is the Bible the Word of God?, etc.). Visit the conference website and register today!

www.arcapologeticscon.com

The Nobility of Soldiering

On this Veterans' Day I thought I would share some brief reflections on the nobility of the profession of soldiering. Specifically, I want to point out four ways that we can see the nobility of soldiering in the Bible. In Scripture, the nobility of soldiering can be seen in. . .

1. The positive portrayal of soldiers. In the Old Testament consider especially Joshua and David, two military men are are heroes of the faith (and heroes of the faith at least in part because of their soldiering. In the New Testament, there is, first, the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant (Matt. 8:5-10). When the centurion expressed his belief (based on his own experience as a military officer who expected his subordinates to carry out his orders) that Jesus could heal his servant with just a word, Jesus said, "I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel." Second, we have the example of Cornelius (Acts 10), the God-fearing centurion who was the first Gentile convert to Christianity.

2. The prayers for success in war. In numerous places, God's people prayed for success in battle against their enemies and God answered their prayers positively (Num. 21:1-3; Josh. 10:12-14; Judges 16:28-31; etc.). Especially poignant is David's praise to God in Psalm 144:1: "Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle."

3. The direct biblical legitimizing of the idea of a just war and of soldiering. In Ecclesiastes 3, we have a well-known poem (think of The Birds famous song, "Turn, Turn, Turn") that gives us a series of contrasting human activities all of which have their appropriate times. Among these we read, "A time for war and a time for peace" (v. 8). The idea is that sometimes war is the right thing to do. Also, in Luke 3:10-14, we read of soldiers who came to John the Baptist to repent of their sins and be baptized. They ask John what they are to do now with their lives. Implied is the question, "Should we quit the army?" John tells them simply, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages." Hereby we have as clear an endorsement of the legitimacy of soldiering as we could ask.

4. The use of military metaphors to describe the Christian life. I will leave it to the reader to check out how many times the New Testament speaks of Christians as "soldiers" and likens our pursuit of Christ-likeness as a war (cf., e.g., 2 Cor. 10:3-6; Eph. 6:10-13; 2 Tim. 1-4).

In these and other ways, the Bible underscores the nobility of being a soldier. Let us honor those who serve well in defense of our country.

States Rights and Liberty

I have been watching with great interest the growing states' rights movement. Many states have introduced and some have recently passed resolutions asserting their sovereignty over the federal government under the 10th Amendment, an constitutional amendment all but forgotten these days by conservatives and liberals alike. This amendment was designed to make explicit what was implicit in many parts of the constitution and was presupposed by most of the Founders, namely, that the United States was a federation of sovereign, independent states (read: nations), and not a singular nation. The federal goverment was not designed as a national government, but as an extention of the various state governments designed to serve their collective interests. The set-up was intended, in part, to preserve the sovereignty of the states except within a very narrow range of responsibilities delegated the federal government. Thus, it was also intented to preserve individual liberties.

The current states' rights movement is trying to prevent and roll back the incroaching tyranny of an all-encompassing and all-powerful national government that is presently, let's face it, leading us gradually (but not too gradually!) into socialism and the eradication of personal liberty. I encourage the readers to learn more about this movement by visiting the website of the Tenth Ammendment Center (www.tenthamendmentcenter.com). For some history of the constitution's emphasis on liberty and states' rights and its application for today, read this helpful article by Frank Chodorov:

http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/09/30/state-sovereignty-a-revolutionary-movement/

Atheists Endorse ID Theory

Believe it or not, a growing number of atheists and agnostics are endorsing intelligent design theory as legtimate science. Some are even going so far as to say that it provides evidence for a purposive designer (though not necessarily God) that is superior to to any evidence in favor of Darwinism. The "wedge" that Phillip Johnson started hammering in the 1990s into the "log" of Darwinist hegemony over science is finally starting to split the log! Read about this amazing development in an article by Peter Williams at the website of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Here's the link:

http://epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=66&ap=1