November 3, 2006 Posted by Roger Overton
closeAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
No one is good, especially John Piper (HT: My pastor?)
One of my favorite guys has ended his blogging career. Stop by say farewell to Doug TenNapel.
A great counter-cult ministry (Midwest Christian Outreach) has started a blog. Their first post is on a touchy issue in the apologetics community right now. You can read all about it there, so I'll simply give my opinion on the issue. I'm greatly dissapointed in CRI, and I believe their recent behavior is further evidence of systemic problems within the organization. However, we need to be careful not to be overwhelmingly consumed with taking down other Christians. We must be helpful in critiquing each other, but some in the apologetics community seem to spend their lives stalking certain Christians and ministries, hoping to find errors they can expose. Let's make strong criticisms when necessary, but also point the positive way forward for advancing Christ's kingdom.
Kim Riddlebarger exegeted a recent poll on American beliefs about God. Despite the bad implications of the poll, I love Kim's conclusion: “Reformed Christians should see this as a
moment of great opportunity. Our Christ-centered covenant theology
(the mediator of the covenant is the Word made flesh) is a powerful
antidote to moralistic deism. Therefore, let us be fully prepared to
give to everyone who asks, a reason for the hope that is within (1
Peter 3:15).”
Fred Sanders reminds us that our commitment to the Gospel must be coupled with our commitment to theology.
Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts 
No Comments »
October 28, 2006 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
Here are some of the live bloggers capturing the conference for your reading pleasure:
Sarcasmagorical (Brent DeBow)
Think Christian (Andy Rau)
Mere Orthodoxy (Matt Anderson)
Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts No Comments »
October 27, 2006 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
The 2006 GodBlogCon is now underway! Smaller turnout this year, but it makes for a more intimate gathering. A summary of John Mark Reynold's kick-off lecture has been posted on the con's website. I don't know of any live bloggers yet, but my guess there will be some (wouldn't it be ironic if there weren't?).
So far I've caught up with Andrew Jackson (SmartChristian.com), John Sexton (Verum Serum), Fred Sanders & John Mark Reynolds (Middlebrow), Dustin Steeve (The Righthouse), Mark D. Roberts (MarkDRoberts.com), Joe Carter (Evangelical Outpost), and Andy Rau (ThinkChristian.net).
A friend of mine made a video for a Chipotle commercial contest. By simply watching the commercial, you increase his chances of winning a $10,000 prize. So go watch it!
Another friend of mine works on special effects and such and recently worked with David Zucker (Airplane, Scary Movie 4) doing props for a couple of campaign ads. So go check out the Albright ad and the Taxman ad.
Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts 3 Comments »
I came across the following in The Mesopotamian (an Iraqi blog I read occasionally) and found it interesting in light of our recent discussion on the increasing number of conspiracy theories believed by people in the U.S.
In the blog, Alaa says that because the U.S. “has been cast into this [role of ‘Sole Super Power’] almost despite itself,” the result is that
America has become the obsession of friend and foe alike, world wide. Just listen to any standard discourse of our Arab commentators, for instance. You will hear the word America or something to do with America, in every other sentence; if not in each one. America is deified, demonized, believed to be the source of everything that is happening. My son once told me that one of his teachers (of wahabi sympathies) emphatically told his pupils in class, that it was America that caused the Tsunami that struck the shores of Asia. Ordinary American folk may not quite realize or understand this; it is rather like some of these fairy tales when some quite ordinary person finds himself crowned as King or something of the sort.
Some of the lies told in the Muslim world about Israel and the U.S. are downright silly–to the point where you would laugh if they didn’t have such dire consequences (I’ll post about a particularly ridiculous yet disturbing one later this week). Do these false beliefs lead to the hatred, or do they grow out of an already existing hatred? Either way, they’re extremely destructive and must be combated both here and in the Muslim world, to the extent that such a thing is possible.
If the Iraqis succeed in establishing a stable, free country (may God allow it!), great strides will most likely be made in the direction of truth, and the result will be greater peace. Alaa notes in the same post that the battle for Iraq is crucial:
The best way to confront the theocratic regime in Iran and all other dictatorships in the region is for the Iraqi experiment to succeed; that is something that is clearly understood by all around us, which explains their [the terrorists’] desperate efforts to abort this project.
Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Miscellaneous, Politics 14 Comments »
I hate election season. I hate, hate, hate, hate it. I'm not sure what makes me hate it most–the extra tension in the air, the mailbox clogged with ridiculous political ads, the repeated messages on my answering machine from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Riordan, the attempted manipulation, the rude jokes, being branded as evil even more often than usual….
As we go through these last few weeks before the election, debating for and against certain matters on the ballot, I urge you all–wherever you fall on the political spectrum–to remember that your words matter.
Fourteen-year-old Julia Wilson discovered this the hard way when she threatened the president on her MySpace page (a federal offense) and was promptly paid a visit by two secret service agents. How normal people can say the things they do about their political opponents, I'll never know, but there is a serious disconnect in “a very peace-loving person” who stencils a heart on her backpack and then “post[s] a picture of the president, scrawl[s] 'Kill Bush' across the top and dr[aws] a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand.”
Other people taught her to speak this way. She learned it was okay from them, and now as she speaks, she's affecting the way other people see those with whom she disagrees. People will be treated badly because of her words. People who don't deserve it.
God forbid you should do the same with your words. So please, put away your holy water and wooden stakes, try to maintain your rationality, and give your fellow citizens a little credit. They might be wrong, but chances are their motives and intelligence are as good as yours.
Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Miscellaneous, Politics 2 Comments »
October 18, 2006 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
Jay Smith is a brilliant evangelist in the UK. He works with Answering-Islam.org and teaches weekly at the Speaker's Corner in London (a public forum for dialogue). He's now making great apologetic use of YouTube technology. Here's his explanation:
A couple of Christian film-makers, after seeing me down at Speaker's
Corner,
approached me with the possibility of filming an entire series of
public
challenges to Islam, as well as rebuttals to their challenges
of
Christianity, and then housing them on 'YouTube', where they could
be
used to engage Muslims publicly, as well as employed by Christians
who
need answers to some of the more current challenges we are
facing.
We decided to call these short videos 'Pfander Films', in memory
of the
great CMS debater of the 19th century, Dr. Carl Pfander.
I
filmed my first 10 episodes (from 1 – 10 minutes each) on Thursday,
and the
first three have now been put on-line, at 'YouTube' for you to
view
at:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=PfanderFilms
These include my
introduction, a five minute clip on 'Jack Straw and the
problem of the
Hijab', and a clip concerning 'Who is going to represent
Islam in Britain
now?' We have purposely chosen these first ones to
represent topics
currently in the news, and have made them look
amateurish, as they then tend
to generate more hits.
Feel free to go up and look at them, respond to
any of them, as YouTube
permits you to freely post either a text or video
response, or respond
to the Muslims who are commenting on the clips. It's a
great way to get
involved in evangelism from the comfort of your own home, a
sort of
'arm-chair' missionary, and it won't cost you a cent.
Here are the videos posted so far:
Jay Smith's First Video
Veil- Jack Straw and the Problem with the Hijab
Who Represents Islam in Britain Now?
Re: Who Hijacked Islam?! (a response to a Muslim rant about his religion being misunderstood)
Is the Bible Corrupted?
Rules of Engagement
Re: Muslim Teacher Suspended for Wearing a Veil in Class
On another note, Steve at STR linked to Gary Habermas' book Dealing with Doubt, which is available for free online. This is a great resource from an authority on the subject.
Lastly, stayed tuned for next Tuesday's 24 Season 6 trailer.
Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts 1 Comment »
I think that's a good question to ask the people you see wearing this:
If you're not sure who this is, read the article by Humberto Fontova, “Che Guevara: 39 Years of Idolatry.”
From the article:
The most popular version of [the] Che t-shirt, for instance, sports the slogan “Fight Oppression” under his famous face. This is the face of a man who co-founded a regime that jailed more of its subjects than Hitler or Stalin's and declared that “individualism must disappear!”
Some of his other fine accomplishments (quotes from the article):
- Declared, “A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”
- Said, “I don't need proof to execute a man. I only need proof that it's necessary to execute him!”
- Boasted that he executed from “revolutionary conviction” rather than from any “archaic bourgeois details” like judicial evidence.
- Urged “atomic extermination” as the final solution for those American “hyenas,” saying, “We will march the path of victory even if it costs millions of atomic victims.”
- Provoked one of the biggest refugee crises in the history of this hemisphere.
- Rounded up Cuban rock & roll fans en masse, and herded them into prison camps for forced labor.
- Put effeminate male youth in prison camps with “Work Will Make Men Out of You” in bold letters above the gate.
- Jailed or exiled most of Cuba's best writers, poets and independent film-makers.
Isn't he hot?
(HT: The Pearcey Report)
Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Main Page, Politics 12 Comments »
When a Christian comes up against difficult intellectual arguments against Christianity, there are two paths that can be taken (and indeed, I’m seeing this split occur in the Evangelical community). First, one can take refuge in the perspective so dominant in our culture that religious values and spiritual questions are “above the line” of rationality (as Francis Schaeffer put it)–beyond the reach of intellectual investigation, attacks, or proofs. Spiritual “truths” are not in the same category as material truths, so challenges are irrelevant.
On the second path, one sees all of true reality as a single whole–spiritual and material–existing as it is, never as its opposite, and capable of being known (never exhaustively, yet truly) through observations, rational thought, and revelation. But since all of reality is the same kind of reality, this means there is only one truth about what exists as the spiritual aspect of that reality. If the Christian who believes this about reality cares about truth (i.e., what actually exists), he must face the difficult questions and struggle through them, working to find the answers, for he’s not willing to place his trust in something that is not there. If Christianity is true, it will hold up to scrutiny; if it is not true, this Christian doesn’t want to believe it.
Can a Christian persevere through mockery, persecution, or a time of dry emotions and few experiences without the confidence that he is held up by a solid, true reality? Can he act consistently and deeply on a faith he doesn’t believe represents what actually exists? I don’t see how the first path can sustain the confidence needed for sincere, enduring love, service, and sacrifice. On the other hand, I think the second path leads to a spiritually deep, authentic, persevering church.
For this very reason, Schaeffer encourages believers to grasp the reality of Christianity in his book, He is There and He is Not Silent:
The truth of Christianity is that it is true to what is there. You can go to the end of the world and you never need be afraid, like the ancients, that you will fall off the end and the dragons will eat you up. You can carry out your intellectual discussion to the end of the discussion because Christianity is not only true to the dogmas, it is not only true to what God has said in the Bible, but it is also true to what is there, and you will never fall off the end of the world! It is not just an approximate model; it is true to what is there. When the evangelical catches that–when evangelicalism catches that–we may have our revolution. We will begin to have something beautiful and alive, something which will have force in our poor, lost world (p. 289).
Posted in Amy's Posts, Apologetics, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Religion (General) 5 Comments »
I know we have people of all political persuasions who read this blog (and you're all welcome!), and so I have a question for our non-conservative readers. I mean this question sincerely because I'm truly baffled by it, and I'm hoping that those of you who tend toward the left will be able to give me some insight.
Here's my question: Why are normal people on the left obsessed with conspiracy theories? And I don't mean people on the far left. (You can certainly find wacky people on the far right who believe in conspiracy theories.) I mean your average Democrat. Granted, I'm basing this on my observation of the average Democrat (i.e., everyone) in the film industry where I work, so this could be a skewed picture of people on the left in general. But seriously, I'm sitting in my office, listening to my co-workers talk about how Bush is “criminally incompetent,” and then 10 seconds later, they're talking about how he has masterminded everything from the Foley scandal (somehow, this is supposed to help Republicans?) to the gas prices. Besides the fact that these two ideas seem irreconcilable (criminally incompetent, yet secretly controlling everything), the second seems to me to be paranoid and irrational. And yet, my very normal friends actually believe it.
Other examples: two friends of mine at separate places of business were shocked to hear co-workers say they believed that Tony Blair and George Bush made up the supposed planned terrorist attack on the airlines that was “thwarted” last August. And don't forget the “Scholars for Truth” who are promoting the idea that our government was directly responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center. Lest you think that's just a few crazy professors, 36% of Americans agree with them that “federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them 'because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.'”
And how about the Valerie Plame scandal? People were convinced that the Bush Administration was behind the leak about Plame's identity. But of course, that conspiracy theory (like nearly every conspiracy theory) proved to be false–the leaker was actually opposed to President Bush. Even after that was revealed, I heard people argue that somehow the President was still behind the leak.
If you're on the left and you believe in these conspiracies–or you know others who do–and you understand the thinking behind them, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this. (I have a two-part theory but would like to hear from you first.) If you're on the left and you don't know anyone who believes these things, I want to hear that, too. If you're conservative and you have ideas about this, please keep in mind that I'm not writing this to mock people on the left, so please respond accordingly with serious comments only.
Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Politics 15 Comments »
October 7, 2006 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
Justin Taylor posted a nice series of quotes today:
Anti-Intellectualism
Read the Old Books
Read the Best Books
Last summer The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology produced a theme issue on Mormonism. John Divito links to the content now available online.
Check out Challies for more on books, for it is “By Our Books Shall We Be Known.“
Where have the evangelical youth gone? Ben Witherington reflects on the report churches only retain 4-5% of their youth. Youth ministry entertains, instead of educates. Therefore, when something else appears more entertaining, why stick with church?
In two months, the fifth season of 24 will be released on DVD. In three months, season six will begin. Unfortunately, I stumbled upon a season six cast list today. So now I'm all hyped up on 24 again and it's still months away! Oh well, check out the list and let me know what you think. I'm disappointed one of my recurring favorites isn't on there (yet).
Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts No Comments »
content rss
Recent Comments