The Top 20 Countdown continues today with a story about a famous Christian athlete. Checking in at Number 15: The Dangerous Lure of ‘Celebrity Christians’. I have struggled for years with the concept that God somehow intervenes in athletic events. I have seen the post game interviews where athletes thank God for helping them make the big play or for helping their team win. And I wonder if God really chooses to get involved with sporting event outcomes. Does He sovereignly evaluate the two teams and inventory the number of Christians on the home team versus the visiting team? Is it quantity or spiritual maturity that determines the eventual outcome? Would God bless a team with 20 nominal Christians or the one with 10 really committed believers? What if two equally committed players, one a wide receiver and one a cornerback, are going for a pass in the end zone for the game deciding play? Who gets the blessing of
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Yesterday the Top 20 Countdown article was about forgiveness. Today the next most read article is about a group of people who model real forgiveness. Number 16: Where do you see Jesus? I rarely tear up when I read the newspaper. I probably should weep everytime I pick up that journal of human misery and evil. I suppose you become numb to the overwhelming scope of suffering. Two stories this week have generated wildly different responses. One story produced anger and disgust. The other story caused tears to well up in my eyes and humble self-examination. I have had several people write to me and ask me to address the group of people in Kansas that pickets the funerals of fallen soldiers. I have hesitated to respond for two reasons. One, I do not wish to give this group any more exposure. Two, I always try to be gentle in my admonishment when I disagree with the views or actions
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This month we are counting down the most read blogs in the nearly two years of humble ramblings. Today we check in with Number 17: Topic Number One – Forgiveness. Over the weekend I watched The McLaughlin Group. I had not seen the show in years but not much has changed. Moderator John McLaughlin fires out discussion points in staccato fashion to the panel. McLaughlin shouts out the topic and then the name of the person chosen to respond first. If we had our own version of the show this week (The BadChristian Group) I suspect the opening salvo might go like this… Topic Number One…FORGIVENESS…is it even possible? DAVE??? This is an important subject. One of the most read articles I have posted dealt with forgiveness and I am going to revisit some of that blog today. I have written a lot about the Amish response to the tragic shootings in Pennsylvania. Those gentle people have taught me a
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Happy Fourth of July! Today the Bad Christian Top 20 Countdown is at Number 18 with this post: I Fought the Law. I hope you read my blog about going to Homecoming last weekend at Baylor University. It was a wonderful weekend spent with family and friends. But I want these ramblings to be authentic and real. I have an embarrassing admission to make. I drove and parked carefully in Waco last weekend because I feared I was a wanted man. Let me explain. October 22nd dawned sunny and pleasant in scenic Garland, Texas. I blissfully strode to the mailbox to retrieve my daily dose of catalogues, junk mail, and bills. I sorted through the stack. “No annual fee for 12 months” – Correct. I am tearing it up. “A Special Invitation from Miracle Ear” – I don’t like what I can hear. No thanks. “A Charming Way to Show off Your Cleveland Browns Pride” – After last Sunday??? How
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The Top 20 Countdown continues with Number 19: Is Manliness Endangered? The number one box office movie is still the 1997 film Titanic. It was the number one movie for fifteen consecutive weekends and grossed 600 million in the US and over 1.8 billion worldwide. Titanic became a national obsession to the point where people were wearing T-Shirts that said… The boat sank.Get over it. Many moviegoers got drawn into the class warfare relationship of Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). But there was so much more to this story than the boat sinking. The pride and arrogance of engineers who thought they had designed the unsinkable vessel. Witnessing the worst side of human nature as people perished because some were so concerned about self preservation that they willingly sacrificed others to achieve that goal. All of this came to mind as I read an article in The Weekly Standard entitled Being a Man. Christina Hoff
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It is hard to believe that I have now posted over 350 blogs. Out of curiosity I went back and calculated the most read articles. Starting today we will mark the Top 20 Countdown. The twentieth most read post regarded a classic Christmas song and story. The article was called “The Christmas Truce”. Last year I posted a story about the decision by a Wisconsin elementary school to rewrite the lyrics of “Silent Night” to make it acceptable for the “winter program”. The unfortunate choice for a new title was “Cold in the Night”. And the new lyrics went something like this. Cold in the night,no one in sight, winter winds whirl and bite, how I wish I were happy and warm, safe with my family out of the storm. That is wrong on so many levels. Why not just have the kids sing “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” and go on home. Some things just shouldn’t
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My copy of World Magazine arrived in the mail this week and I noticed that Dr.Marvin Olasky had written an interesting feature. Here is the description from the article: Since July 1, 2000, I’ve been telling WORLD readers every few months about my treadmill reading—books that exercise my mind while exercising my body. Normally I note only books worth reading, and have cited about 400 during those seven years. Here are 100 all-time treadmill favorites. I scanned the impressive list of titles and authors. I actually overlooked on the first pass an author that is very close to me. Me. Dr.Olasky included When Bad Christians Happen to Good People in his all-time treadmill faves. I was surprised and honored. I am sure that thinkers on his list like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, William F. Buckley, William Dembski, Alister McGrath, and many others would be just as surprised to be lumped in with me. I wrestled with the whole shameless self-promotion thing for several days.
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