Pursuing Holiness

There’s an opportunity for a prayer paradigm shift over at Threads from Henry’s Web:

But I think we need to shift our whole way of thinking about prayer. Prayer, I believe, is about me communicating with my heavenly Father. Did my prayer work? If I communicated, yes it did. It’s not based on what I get, or how God changes, or did God make my enemy feel really bad about the way he’d treated me. It’s not even about God making sure my doctrinal opponents receive due correction from the Holy Spirit. It’s about me communicating with God.

Do I believe something happens? Indeed I do. I believe that God changes me, or perhaps more precisely he enables me to change. That fits well with the prayer in the private room. When you pray that way, it’s possible God may not correct your neighbor or your enemy; he may correct you and change your attitude toward that person.

written by Laura

What’s going on in the Philophronos blogosphere?  I’ll have more updates in a few days, but here’s some to get you started.

A new member: Eric at Journey of Words. Eric is a Christian, a husband and father, and a schoolteacher. He often writes on faith, poetry, and current events. Go have a look, leave a comment or even better, trackback to one of his posts to welcome him aboard!

Over at Threads from Henry’s Web, learn about The Joy of Being Unscientific.

Journey of Cross and Quill is on hiatus for a couple more weeks, but if you missed her post on The Impact of Christianity on Early American Government and Culture it’s well worth a read.

The Pen of the Wayfarer is Never Alone at Christmas: Always God, Faithfully God, God without Fail!

Annavenger’s taking a break for the holiday’s but her latest is a Fire Safety post which is timely, considering how much time we spend in the kitchen this time of year.

Here at PH, I’ve been contemplating poverty in America.

written by Laura

I regularly link to Henry Neufeld, because there are linkers and thinkers in the blogosphere, or as as Steven den Beste said, editors and writers, and Henry is definitely the former latter.  [Doh!  Can't believe I got that wrong.] Unsurprisingly, so is his wife Jody. Henry links to Jody’s blog, which I remember seeing when she first started this summer, but somehow forgot to add to my RSS reader. (A mistake which has now been corrected.) Jody is a good writer with a remarkable testimony. I encourage you to go have a look - her posts are contemplative and encouraging.

Link to Pursuing Holiness and track back your latest and greatest here!

Trackback using Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

written by Laura

What’s going on today in the Philophronos blogging arena?

Reformed Chicks Blabbing notes that Sam Brownback is the object of a pretty decent parody site. I agree there will be more, but I don’t mind that much. Heat, kitchen, etc.

I was going to get everybody’s latest post, but this one at Imago Dei is worth going back a few days for: Whispers of Christ in Deathly Hallows.

There are some lovely poems and photos at Pen of the Wayfarer.

Bob Macdonald will be living large in New York for the next few days, but check out his Psalm 119 series, it’s fascinating.

There’s some baby bloggging going on at Journey of Cross and Quill, but a few days ago she was thinking about heaven. I love that book too.

Over at annavenger, you can watch a bit of Jihad–the Musical. A guilty pleasure - it’s just as heavy handed as the Betty Bowers site, for which no fatwas have been issued to date. I could enjoy the video clip even more if I could just stop thinking of Theo van Gogh and Salman Rushdie.

Henry Neufeld takes on the evolution/creation debate again, this time on how it plays out in the school system, in The Danger of Teaching the Controversy.

As for Pursuing Holiness, I’ll be completely frivolous and toss in this post - Another Great Moment from Star Trek: TNG. Worf sings Klingon opera. In all seriousness, I don’t know why Michael Dorn never got an Emmy (isn’t that the TV award??) for his work on the show. He had a number of challenges, not least of which was acting around heavy makeup and prosthesis, and consistently did a great job.

written by Laura

I noticed this post at Desiring God blog,

What Color Should Jesus Be?
Listen to John Piper talk about whether artistic portrayals of Jesus should be racially diverse.

I haven’t had time to listen to Piper’s sermon yet, but it reminded me of the Discovery Channel special that created a model of what they thought Jesus might have looked like:

The new face was created as part of a documentary television series co-produced by the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Discovery Channel, and slated to be aired on April 15 in the midst of Christianity’s Easter celebration. A forensic artist at the University of Manchester created the image using a 2,000-year-old skull of a Jewish man from Israel, and based hair and skin tone on third-century frescoes of Jewish faces.

Their verdict?

I do think all those blue-eyed blonde portraits are pretty unlikely, but I’ll find out sooner or later and whatever He looks like, it’ll be more than good enough for me.

written by Laura

This post from fellow Philophronos Blogger Reformed Chicks Blabbing caught my eye, because the idea of philophronos blogging was to raise the level of political (and other) discourse. The post turned out to be something completely different, but it led me down a rabbit trail to a 2006 Coffee Swirls post titled The Christian Blogosphere Demerit Awards and this 2005 Tim Challies post titled The Christian Blogosphere Awards of Demerit.

I felt quite guilty when I read them. Not because I’m mean, although I can be. I sometimes take a very sharp tone, especially in comments, that I continually try, and often fail, to avoid. Then having posted the comment, I feel that it would be dishonest to delete it. I wish there were some sort of sanctification accelerator… oh, wait! There is. It’s a kit called “the bible and prayer.” It’s rather like the treadmill in my bedroom - a wonderful tool, used far less often than is optimal even though I really enjoy it once I get started. But I digress.

If anyone were actually handing out these Christian Blogosphere Demerits, I’d be entitled to more than a few. I’ve become a serial RSS offender. If anyone does read this blog via RSS, I’m sorry to have annoyed you. Check the posts and see how you rate. Any other offenders out there?

written by Laura