This is a great interview with Don Richardson, author of ‘Peace Child’. If you haven’t read this book, you have to. Should be required reading for every believer in my opinion.
Category: Video Page 3 of 15
It seems this message is becoming more mainstream these days. It’s about time. Max Keiser is right to call this financial terrorism, especially in light of the fact that we, the tax payers, have bailed them out while everyone else is suffering from their dealings, and as a result, they have had record profits this past year. Unbelievable. I’m pro-profit, pro-free-market, pro-conservative, but Max Keiser is also right to call this Rigged Market Capitalism. I can’t think of a better term for it.
Anyone else find it odd the “flash crash” (1000 point dow drop within a matter of minutes) happened right when Congress was negotiating rules regulating derivatives? Oh and oddly enough now, the rules around derivatives have been completely gutted as I understand it. There is rampant corruption and looting going on within the government and the larger corporate world, particularly the monolithic banks. This is not a free market but an oligarchy.
More generally, here are Davidowitz’s views on the economy at large. Even Paul Krugman from the New York Times is calling the Third Great Depression, though he’s completely wrong about the remedy (even more spending).
Matt Drudge makes great points on journalism in this speech he gave to the National Press Club in DC on June 2, 1998. Just think of what the main-stream media has become the 12 years that has passed since this was recorded: a pure marketing outlet for governments and corporations to spin things however which way they deem necessary to suit their agenda. And it’s no wonder the new media, the very thing he envisioned in this speech, is taking off. And it’s no wonder the Federal government (FTC/FCC) wants to squelch it. All his points still apply, and then some.
R. Scott Clark says of this video (at the bottom) on his blog, “Who Says the Evangelicals Don’t Have a Liturgy?” As much as we Evangelicals have tried to eschew the “traditional” styles of church, it seems we’ve merely replaced it with newer styles that are 3 inches deep. This is one of many reasons why so many are leaving these kinds of churches for 1) nothing, 2) the Roman Catholic church, or 3) other traditional-style Protestant churches (Reformed and otherwise) that don’t take the worship service so casually, as if they weren’t approaching the throne of God.
I believe there needs to be reverential awe when we come together before God’s throne corporately (and privately), knowing Him to be the very God Isaiah, Ezekiel, Job and John (Revelation 1) approached, and at the same time, the gentle Shepherd who saves His people mercifully through the cross and resurrection. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 1:7) In many of these churches, you don’t get the feeling the people are in awe of God, just emotionally jazzed up, the same way you are at a concert of your choosing.
The attacks upon the evangelical faith, from within, just keep rolling. There is no relenting it seems on which fronts are being compromised, slowly as well as quickly. The issue of theistic evolution (evolution designed and created by God) has been simmering for some time, gaining strength, until finally it has boiled over and become very public, so public that ABC News even did a story on it (see below). And all this is happening within the Reformed scholarly community in particular.
Dr. Bruce Waltke, a highly distinguished Old Testament professor at Reformed Theological Seminary resigned (from his perspective was forced to resign because of the theology police) due to his issues with “traditional” understandings of Genesis and his acceptance of evolution as a legitimate understanding that fits.
As Rick Phillips points out in this article on the Reformation21 blog, much more is at stake in this debate than issues of science. The very issue of hermeneutics is at stake, that is, our method of interpreting Scripture itself (hence the title of the article Theistic Evolution: A Hermeneutical Trojan Horse). In addition, the issue of the authority of Scripture is also at stake. And the logic is that if it can be argued that Adam and Eve weren’t literal, historical people who God created in the garden but rather products of evolution, there is no stopping how far “reinterpretations” or new interpretations will soon take hold of other doctrines.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read this. A Federal Reserve senior official, Thomas Hoenig, said this today: “I am confident that holding rates down at artificially low levels over extended periods encourages bubbles, because it encourages debt over equity and consumption over savings.” Whaa?? Someone in the Fed who actually understands the root cause of all of our economic woes and votes for policy against the system? I didn’t know such a person existed in the Fed. He is certainly in the minority, especially with the likes of former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan making remarks recently indicating he had little to do with any sort of macro-bubbles or creating any problems, a notion that Peter Schiff fiercely counters:
Nobel Prize winner of economics in the 20th century, Milton Friedman, explains in this old video why entitlement policies, while well-intentioned, are fundamentally flawed at their root. Really wish we would pay attention to even recent history, let alone distant. We’re a very short-sighted people.
The words ‘piety’, ‘holiness’, ‘righteousness’ amongst others are words few hear today from church pulpits without thinking of the evils of legalism. Even the word ‘religion’ has been lambasted to the point of being equal to that of the ideology of the Pharisees.
What has occurred though to a great degree is that the idea of piety itself, properly defined, in Biblical terms has been left by the way side, in the wake of moving from one extreme to the other. Personal holiness is something that is lightly if ever talked about. We talk about our mistakes or external sins here and there, for sure, but how often are we admonished to pursue virtuous piety, in the terms the Bible describes? It is a shame personal holiness is not advocated the way the Scripture advocate it. The problem is that you risk offending people, which is exactly what Scripture does to sinners (like myself) who are in violation of God’s law. It brings rebuke and correction, something our “enlightened” American society has a hard time with.