The Top 100 Christian Blogs

Posted on July 17, 2007 by me

A blog called The Evangelical Outpost has published an admittedly subjective list of the “Top 100” Christian Blogs. I’ll say up front that I didn’t make the list … this year. 😉

Now, if I hadn’t followed a link from one of the blogs who did make the list, I wouldn’t have found it. (I will say that Tom Gilson’s Thinking Christian does deserve to be on the list.) Personally, I haven’t found 100 Christian blogs that I have found worthy of revisiting. So far, I’ve found less than a dozen that I’ve bothered to subscribe to, and I’ve let a few of those go. But then, I tend to be hard to please. I have a hard time with the American Evangelical culture, so it takes someone rare who can think beyond the mainstream to keep my interest. I also get easily bored with the whole emerging church crowd (what I have termed the emo-gent movement).

While I have checked out numerous blogs to find some good thinking material, I have been greatly disappointed. And, one of my favorite bloggers has at least temporarily turned his back on the blogging world. I read more science-related blogs than Christian, and I do frequent an atheist’s blog; besides being an old friend of mine, Mike is also a good writer and more interesting and thought-provoking than much of the pablum I find on the net.

So, I’m interested in checking out some of these “Top 100” blogs, in the chance (I do believe in some chance) that I discover something really good. (I’ll try not to let my failed exploration this morning into a couple on the list dampen my spirits.) Hopefully you don’t have my particular issues and will have an easier time finding something palatable on the list.

And yes, a few of these recent posts, while interesting enough, are to hide the fact that I haven’t had time to come up with any original material… I do plan a post or two on Dawkins’ The God Delusion, but there’s so much there to have fun with that I don’t really know where to begin…

Posted in Random Thoughts, Reviews | 5 Comments

Next summer: The Cosmic Dance

Posted on July 16, 2007 by me

Several years ago I read Gregory Boyd’s (and Edward Boyd’s) Letters From a Skeptic, and since then I’ve given out many copies of the book to friends and acquaintances who have questions about Christianity, or know someone who does. The book consists of correspondence between Gregory (a theology professor) and his father, Edward, who is a non-believer. It’s a great, non-threatening book for anyone to read, as nearly everyone will agree with at least one of the authors.

But, that’s all I’ve ever read of Gregory Boyd, until yesterday when I followed some links that let me to his blog, and from there to the Christus Victor Ministries page. Boyd is now Senior Pastor of some large church machine in St. Paul, MN. I’m not a megachurch fan, but as I read through his church’s website, I kind of liked it. Okay, enough background plugs.

Now, this upcoming book by Boyd & friends looks really interesting:

The Cosmic Dance

The site gives a brief explanation of the book as well a few sample pages. As I read through the short blurb about the book, which won’t be released for another year, it made me want to be one of Greg Boyd’s friends. Put this down on your calendar for next summer.

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt, Reviews | Leave a comment

Darwin or Design?

Posted on July 15, 2007 by me

The blog world is all aflutter about the new audiobook Darwin or Design? by Jason Rennie. The book is available for download free (or a higher-quality version at a modest price).

The book features interviews with evolutionists such as P.Z. Myers, Sean Carroll, and Nick Matzke and ID proponents such as Mike Behe, Guillermo Gonzalez, and Mike Gene, and attempts to provide a fair and balanced look at the ID issue. The book also includes interviews with sci-fi author Robert Sawyer (Calculating God, a very interesting read) and journalist Denyse O’Leary (one of my favorite bloggers). The full list of chapters and guests can be found here.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to any of it yet, but the initial reviews have been positive. For anyone interested in the ID controversy, this sounds like a great deal (and hey, it’s free!).

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt, Reviews | 1 Comment

Worship in the key of C minus

Posted on July 14, 2007 by me

First off, I have to admit that my title is not original. In fact, it’s pretty much a rip off from a post over at the Mere Comments blog, entitled Flatter the Emperor, Pander to the Crowd:

This post is dedicated to all you long-suffering parishioners out there who have to endure weekly services interrupted by showboating and shimmying choirs, singing music written in the key of C minus (that is no typo!) to lyrics that Ogden Nash would have been embarrassed to sign his name to.

(I happen to think Ogden Nash was brilliant, by the way.)

In the post, Anthony Esolen lists 6 traits that he sees as common to the great periods of artistic growth, then compares them to what he calls a “decadent age:”

By contrast, you can tell a decadent age by a shift from popular culture to mass entertainment, the loss of a canon of revered and universally understandable art, the decline in standards of education, the decline of crafts and trades, the abolition of separate “laboratories” or their absorption under a single jurisdiction (for instance, the expunging of the local element from all of our public schools), and the curtailing of political freedom, or the loss of material prosperity.

He then points out that the only exception our current liturgical composers (liturgical, I’m assuming, is used very loosely) have with the other decadent ages is the “loss of material prosperity.”

It is, I believe, a point well-made. I’ve said somewhat the same thing, only not nearly as well. Our contemporary pop theology, praxis and hymnody largely ignores both the historical Church and any sense of excellence. (It just makes you want to go to church, doesn’t it?)

Drift on over to Mere Comments and read the balance of the post, and see if you agree.

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