Wednesday, June 21, 2006

The Lure of Stardom




Read an interesting outside perspective on contemporary Christian music HERE. This piece originally appeared in the Washington Post in early December.

Also, check out paleoevangelical's similarly-themed post from the other day HERE.

HERE'S my all-time favorite contemporary Christian album, although THIS might be a close second.

Friday, June 02, 2006

A New Party?

On the ground in America, people worry terribly--really, there are people who actually worry about it every day--about endless, weird, gushing government spending. But in Washington, those in power--Republicans and Democrats--stand arm in arm as they spend and spend. (Part of the reason is that they think they can buy off your unhappiness one way or another. After all, it's worked in the past. A hunch: It's not going to work forever or much longer. They've really run that trick into the ground.)
- Peggy Noonan in THIS PIECE yesterday on opinionjournal.com.

Conservatives need an aggressive campaign to hold Republicans accountable for their apostasy and remind America that conservatism's Jeffersonian principles remain an untried and viable alternative to the programs the two main parties are offering.

- Andrew Cline in THIS PIECE today on americanspectator.org

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Saved by His Precious Blood

"As long as the fallen human mind is what it is, the Arminian way of thinking will continue to be a natural type of mistake. But it is not natural in any other sense. In fact, it is Calvinism that understands the Scriptures in their natural, one would have thought inescapable, meaning; Calvinism that keeps to what they actually say; Calvinism that insists on taking seriously the biblical assertions that God saves, and that he saves those whom he has chosen to save, and that he saves them by grace without works, so that no man may boast, and that Christ is given to them as a perfect Savior, and that their whole salvation flows to them from the cross, and that the work of redeeming them was finished on the cross. It is Calvinism that gives due honor to the cross."
- J. I. Packer

(Read the rest of Packer's "Saved by His Precious Blood": An Introduction to John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ HERE.)