From Ben Witherington:
* for you history buffs, the pluralistic faith practices of the Emperor Constantine.
* commentary on the nature of divine sovereignty showing the influence of Origen as well as Augustine
* on scholarship and Justification by Doubt:
There is of course no purely objective value free scholarship out there. It is just that some do a better job of admitting this, and owning up to their presuppositions and inclinations than others do, and some do a better job of being objective than others. And I would say that it is those who are aware of their own commitments and take them into account and even correct for them that are the persons who really ought to be called critical scholars whether they are persons of no apparent faith, agnostic, or persons of one or another sort of ardent faith. A critical scholar is one who is capable of being self-critical and self-corrective, as well as being able to cast a discerning eye on this or that Biblical text.
From the Thinklings:
* You Can Never Go Down the Drain, by Jared:
The strongest Christians are the ones who are hurting and have been hurting and keep trusting Jesus and will keep trusting Jesus even if their hurt never goes away. That doesn't sell books, I know, but it's the truth. God is omnipresent, right? So while he's perfectly capable of delivering you from your pain and suffering, he's also capable of redeeming you in and through your pain and suffering.
* Shrode links to the best underground rag yet, the Nazarene Nooz. Watch out for the Eternal Security Guard.
* De addresses the “alleged wussification of men in our society”:
The problem is a lack of maturity, not a lack of masculinity.
Read the whole post.
From Joe Carter at the evangelical outpost:
* Whom do we carry, and who bears what weight? If there's such a thing as guilt by association, then every one of us is guilty – or not.
* “The 'marriage and fertility' gap may be the most useful predictor of the mid-term elections.”
