There is a new documentary causing quite a lot of buzz today. It is called Orgasm, Inc. and it looks at the strange but inevitable collision of the pharmaceutical industry with women’s sexuality. Liz Canner uses this film to display the sad reality that pharmaceutical companies play a crucial role in shaping the diseases they…
I spent the first half of yesterday traveling and the second half at a conference. Along the way I heard one person say something about an earthquake in Japan. It wasn’t until I got to my hotel that I learned there had been an utterly devastating earthquake in Japan and that it was followed by…
Email is a curse. At least for many people it feels like a curse. Our inboxes fill before we can blink, we fight a never-ending and always-losing battle for inbox supremacy. The moment we win the battle, the enemy advances with another 2 or 5 or 25 emails. It doesn’t end. It won’t end. Many…
If you want to buy the e-book version of my forthcoming book The Next Story for a good price, here’s how: Pre-order it. Zondervan has put together a rather interesting promotion for the ebook. Here’s the way it works: When the book releases on April 1, the price will return to $9.99. What you need…
Rob Bell may be a universalist. I don’t think this would prove surprising to too many people. Certainly his theological trajectory over the years has been concerning and it’s rare for a guy to suddenly and radically reverse that kind of a path. Bell has a book coming out in the near future, one titled…
Over the past few days I have been preparing to preach on Genesis 3, one of those amazing biblical texts that just opens wide as you begin to study it. One clear application from the first seven verses is that we need to know, believe and stand upon the Word of God. Adam and Eve…
My book The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion is set to release on April 1. As part of the run-up to the book, the publisher created a trailer or commercial for it. And today I get to debut it here at the blog. The commercial seeks to lampoon our technological addiction…
On Sunday I often post a prayer here at the blog. Today I want to ask you to pray. You may have heard of Said Musa, a man imprisoned in Afghanistan and awaiting execution. His crime? He converted to Christianity from Islam. He needs our prayer. Here is what Denny Burk posted yesterday. “Said Musa…
I’m going to be giving away a bunch of Westminster Books gift certificates today. So keep reading. My book The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion is set to release on April 1, 2011–less than 2 months from now. And it is now available now for pre-sale. I’d like to ask you…
Yesterday I shared the first part of a brief biography of Eric Liddell. Today I would like to complete it. In the first part we got as far as Eric Liddell returning to Scotland after winning two Olympic medals. And here he is, just 23 years old, a sports hero who still had at least…
Over the past few weeks I’ve posted a couple of short biographies I wrote this summer. I want to post just one more–this one about the olympic runner and missionary Eric Liddell. What may be most interesting about Eric Liddell is that he is remembered for something he didn’t do far more than than something…
I recently received an email from a long-time reader of this blog who asked if I could write about a week of prayer. Your blog is the third time in the last month that I’ve heard of churches having a week of prayer once a year. You state that you pray 2 hours a day…
I had something I wanted to say today. But then I looked out the window and saw that we had received the big snowfall that everyone had been fussing about for the past 3 or 4 days. I went outside to begin to shovel out (I am so out of shape) and saw something I’ve…
I recently received a copy of Michael Horton’s massive new systematic theology. It’s a big, heavy hardcover that weighs in at around 1050 pages. Several people have asked me if I would offer a review. I wish I could, but honestly, to review this book would be far beyond my capabilities. Not only would it…
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I’ve made no secret of the fact that I enjoyed reading Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Actually, it’s one of my all-time favorite biographies; it’s readable, engaging and it deals with a fascinating part of history. But lately I’ve come across a few articles by experts in Bonhoeffer who say that it’s just plain…
In 1969 Leonard Cohen released a record entitled Songs From A Room. The fifth track on that album is “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy.” The song has become one of Cohen’s more popular ones; it has found its way onto one of his live albums and has been covered by several other artists. It is…
I don’t know that I’ve ever done something quite like this before, so let’s try something new. A year ago, two days after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, I took a stab at suggesting what the late Neil Postman, the author, media theorist and cultural critic, might have to say about it. I suggested that…
Continued from Part 1 Shortly after the birth of baby Helen, John and Betty Stam received their posting to the city of Tsingteh. And this brings us back to where we began in the beginning of the first part. After only a couple of weeks in their new home the Communists took over the city,…