Wonka Wisdom -- Bryan McWhite has started a blog to offer something that is missing in the blogosphere: "spiritual Gobstoppers"

Gobstoppers, you will recall, are Willy Wonka's famous candies that last all day and never lose their flavor. My intention, on this blog, is to offer short, simple, pithy meditations that readers might take in early in the day and mull over all throughout their work day (in the mold, somewhat, of Spurgeon's "Morning and Evening"). It is in no way meant to be a substitute for the 'meat' of Bible reading and meditation, or the 'potatoes' of reading of good, substantive books, or even the 'veggies' of daily reading of good blogs and other edifying and informative materials - if you only ate Gobstoppers, your teeth would fall out and you would certainly die! Rather, it is a place where you can pop in a 'spiritual Gobstopper' and turn it over in your heart and mind all throughout the day.

McWhite, a PhD candidate in Theological Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, is definitely more Spurgeon than Wonka, so his "Gobstoppers" will certainly be worth chewing on.

Screwtape Returns -- Aaron from two or three found a new "letter" in which Screwtape instructs Wormwood on how to deal with his subject now that he has started a blog:

It seems your charge has started what the human vermin call a "blog." This presents new issues that you can use to bring him down, but you must be careful because like with anything the danger is always there that he will use it to glorify the Enemy.

We can eliminate the danger from many of these "bloggers" from the beginning by focusing them on anything but their faith. Lead him to start a political site, a humor site, a blog about his cat, anything but a site that presents the Enemy's plan. We must keep them on either end of the extreme. The easiest way is to simply keep him away from speaking about Him.

Aaron says, "if you are going to copy someone, copy a genius." Personally, I think C.S. Lewis would be flattered by such a worthy homage.

Rope the Dopes -- Let me offer a word of friendly advice to those on the political left: stay away from Karl Rove. Far, far away. Whenever you think he's weak and vulnarable and think it's time to attack - run. It's a trap. Rove is an evil genius without equal; a cross between Machiavelli and Keyser Soze. I'm sympathetic to his politics and yet he even scares me. Not only did he put George W. Bush in the White House (twice) but he planted Howard Dean as head of the DNC. That's a man you just don't want to mess with.

Gay Marriage and Theocracy -- One of my biggest pet peeves is the ridiculous use of the term "theocracy" in reference to evangelicals. Generally, the person using the word has no idea what it means and seems to think that there is no difference between real theocrats (i.e., theonomists) and generic conservative Christians. It might surprise them to find that their own views of policy would sometimes be more palatable to theonomists than would evangelical prescriptions. Take, for example, the issue of same-sex marriage. Douglas Jones, a prominent figure in the theonomy movement, argues that Christians in the U.S. should "let gay marriage happen, as God's judgment on our culture." I don’t think you’ll hear James Dobson supporting that view anytime soon. [Jeremy Pierce has more thoughts on the subject.] (HT: World blog)

Hurlbut on Slippery Slopes -- The Center for Bioethics and Culture has a video clip of William Hurlbut,a Stanford professor and member of the President's Council on Bioethics, presenting a compelling thought experiment on the result of thinking that embryonic life begins at fourteen days. According to Hurlbut, any embyrologist would support the claim that embryonic life begins at the zygote stage and warns that thinking otherwise would lead the scientific community down a slippery slope. He argues that there is little distinction between fourteen days, sixteen days, or twenty-one days and that if the promise of cures become even more tangible, then the pressure for results will outweigh any ethical or moral considerations. Later in his presentation (not included in the clip) he suggests that using the "it's going to die anyway" logic would likely include research on aborted fetuses up to six months.

Give Me That Online Religion -- Steven Weiss asks how religion journals can engage the Web. Putting more of it's contents online is a necessary first step. But I think that theologians need to take advantage of the Internet and especially the blogosphere to fulfill their role of "informing the laity." Journals are an excellent way for them to stay up on current thought but it needs to trickle down into the pews.