Book Review

"Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer" (Myles Munroe). I first heard Myles Munroe speak during my time of false conversion. At the time, he seemed an excellent teacher. Since that time, I have not had a chance to reread his work.

How would Dr. Munroe's teaching sit with my new life?

Overall, I found the book to be reasonably solid. It is a little "word-faith-y". Page 93 has "Just as God created His world with His words, so you create your world with your words." Ok, that probably makes it a lot word-faithy, but I am going to cut Dr. Munroe some slack. If we remap this to say "keep a positive outlook", it is not the Gospel, but it is not wrong to say. I'll probably do a full word-faith study later...

Other than that, I found the points helpful and the Bible quotes matching their contexts very well.

An interesting thought I am having is that Charismatics tend to focus more on OT promises, while more fundamental groups concentrate more on NT teachings. This is also something I need to examine.

Movie Review

"An Inconvenient Truth" (2006) a documentary with Al Gore. This movie provides an excellent view into the motivations of Al Gore. It is quite sad.

Al Gore is a "true believer" in global warming. He wants desperately to make a difference on this issue, and has had little traction. He sees people as basically good, and able to make logical decisions when provided with sufficient evidence. He also believes there is a coming disaster which can be prevented.

Al makes several mistakes, one of which leads into a topic which I have been wanting to post about for some time. The short version is that the problem is not that people need to be convinced of a disaster; the problem is sin. More later.

The other problem is the assumption of a uniformitarian world view, and an assumption that global warming is bad. I'll leave uniformitarianism for another day. I think global warming has the potential to be a net benefit, but I haven't run the numbers to be sure. Icebergs are beautiful, but they have no major values in and of themselves. Even losing the global currents may be a good thing. This is leading back to the uniformitarian viewpoint, so I'll stop there.

Some Code

From selfrighteous.h:

namespace Sin
{
  static const unsigned Stalin = 4_000_000_000;
  static const unsigned Hitler = 3_500_000_000;
  static const unsigned Mother_Theresa = 4;
  static const unsigned Jesus = 0;
  static const unsigned self = 100;
  static const unsigned murderer = 1000;
};

void judge(allPeople)
{
  threshold = 1000;
  // maybe God grades on a curve?
  //threshold = allPeople.getAverageSin()
  foreach person in allPeople
 {
     if( person->sin < threshold )
        heaven_.push_back();
     else
        hell_.push_back();
  }
};

Unfortunately the actual code looks more like:

void God::judge(allPeople)
{
  foreach person in allPeople
     if( person->isSaved() )
        heaven_.push_back();
     else
        hell_.push_back();
}

Person::Person(void)
{
 saved_ = true; // 2 Samuel 12:23
 heart_ = new Heart(Stone);
}

void Person::doSin(void)
{
  if( heart_->canConvict() )
  {
     HolySpirit->grieve();
     return;
  }

  saved_ = false;
}

void Person::repentAndTrust(Jesus*)
{
  saved_ = true;

  delete heart_; // old is passed away
  heart_ = new Heart(HolySpirit);
}

Book Review

"Judas and the Gospel of Jesus" (N. T. Wright). This book is an excellent analysis of some of the claims made relative to the discovery of the "Gospel (sic) of Judas". He presents, point by point, excellent evidence that this 'Gospel' is the exact opposite of the canonical Gospels on every important point.

The Judas book is representative of what is called "Gnosticism". There were many people and subdivisions within the gnostic movement, but a characterizing belief was "gnosis" or "secret knowledge". This idea is a popular one, which can reappear any time.

Wright makes a small attack against dispensationalism at the end of the book. And I am convicted by it. He claims that dispensationalists are not unlike gnostics in their desire to escape the "evil" world. I think this is a real danger. We must remember the call to be salt and light, and not to give up on the earth. As caretakers of the earth, we should conserve, for God "shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth" (Revelation 11:18)