Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

Top 100 Christian Blogs According to Joe Carter at "Evangelical Outpost"

Update Note: See also the post, "100 Christian Books that Changed the Century"

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- Joe Carter says:       (HT: Hugh Hewitt)

This is not a list of the "best Christian blogs" (whatever that might mean) but rather the top 100 blogs that I have found to be the most convicting, enlightening, frustrating, illuminating, maddening, stimulating, right-on and/or wrongheaded by Christians expressing a Christian worldview.

The selection process is, by necessity, intensely personal and unapologetically subjective. There are a number of Christian blogs that are written by brilliant thinkers and stylists yet, for one reason or another, have not captured my imagination in the way that the following blogs have done. The list is also reflective of my rather narrow field of interests and associations. By and large, the bloggers that are included are from the conservative wing of evangelicalism and Catholicism. There is also a peculiar range of focus. Philosophical blogs are overrepresented, for example, while "This is where I’m at right now"-style introspectionists are all but excluded.

.  .  .  For now, I've listed the top 20 that have had the most influence on me over the past year and listed the others in alphabetical order.

1. Between Two Worlds
2. JollyBlogger
3. The Scriptorium
4. Challies.com
5. WORLD mag blogsa

A Must-Read Tribute to Ruth Graham by Her Grandson, Pastor Tullian Tchividjian

Ruth Graham's grandson, Pastor Tullian Tchividjian (New City Presbyterian Church of Margate, Fl) offered the following comment to a post on Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds: 

To summarize what she meant to me and the type of woman she was, I want to share an excerpt from my upcoming book Do I Know God?  (Multnomah).

"When I pulled up to their modest log cabin, my heart started to race. I’ve been visiting my grandparents at their mountain home just outside Asheville, North Carolina, my whole life. But spending time in the home of Billy and Ruth Graham continues to be a powerful experience for me. My grandparents have been walking with God for more than seventy years, and they know him better than anyone else I know. Their simple, single-hearted devotion to their Lord saturates virtually everything they say and do. Every time I spend a few days with them, I leave with a renewed passion to know God the way they do.

I walked through the front door and immediately made my way back to their bedroom, where I knew they were waiting for me. My grandfather sat in a chair next to Tai Tai (it’s what I call my grandmother), who was sitting up in bed. Neither of them gets around well anymore, so they spend most of their days together in their bedroom reading, talking, and praying. When I walked into the bedroom,

Ruth Bell Graham, the Inspiration and Strength Behind Billy Graham, Is Laid to Rest

News coverage of Ruth Bell Graham's life has been quite good.  The Asheville Citizen-Times has a web page directing visitors to a number of articles and photos and multimedia posts.   The Charlotte Observer offers a full video of today's funeral service in Montreat, North Carolina.  The Charlotte Observer offers many articles such as this one which includes links to various other articles.   

Journalist Terry Mattingly has a particularly fine internet post titled "Much More Than the Preacher's Wife,"  which is worth reading. He says,

"Anyone who has ever studied the life and career of the world’s most famous evangelist knows that Ruth Bell Graham was much more than his wife. . .  Ruth Bell Graham was nothing less, in my opinion, than the X-factor in her husband’s life . . .

Here is the link to the emotional tribute to Ruth at the homepage of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. There are also some wonderful audio files on Ruth’s life at A Pilgrim Journey.

And The Charlotte Observer is, as the major newspaper in Billy Graham’s hometown, going to keep covering the story in-depth while other newspapers move on. Here is one of the major wrap-up stories with lots of details and history. And here is a witty part of a tribute column (“She was so much more than an evangelist’s wife”) by Ken Garfield, the former Observer religion writer who took over that desk soon after I left in the mid-1980s . . .

U.S. Evangelical Law Organizations Try to Influence European Law Towards Greater Religious Freedom

This Christian Science Monitor news article is embedded in my last post, but I think it deserves to have a post of its own.  The article highlights some of the work being done in Europe by evangelical law organizations such as the American Center for Law and Justice , the Alliance Defence Fund,  the International Human Rights Group , and the Home School Legal Defense Association.

John Stott to Retire

Few men have been more influential in the evangelical world than John Stott.   As one website summarizes: 

He has written over 40 books. His best known, Basic Christianity, has been translated into more than 50 languages. Other titles include The Cross of Christ, The Contemporary Christian, Evangelical Truth and New Issues Facing Christians Today, and eight New Testament expositions (Acts, Romans etc.) in the 'Bible Speaks Today' series published by IVP.

Of his retirement we read the following:

On Sunday 22nd April, Hugh Palmer told the All Souls Church Family of John Stott's future plans for retirement and move from central London.   This was at John's request in advance of a Press Release to co-incide with his birthday.

Here is an extract from the Press Announcement The Langham Partnership sent out on 27th April 2007 :

"John Stott would like his many friends around the world to know that, having reached the age of 86 in April, he has taken the decision finally to retire from public ministry after fulfilling one final speaking engagement at the upcoming Keswick Convention in July.

He will be moving from his flat in central London where he has lived for more than 30 years, to a retirement community for Anglican clergy in the south of England, which will be able to provide more fully for his present and future needs.  Dr Stott has made this decision with the strong belief that it is God's provision for him at this stage."

Is the National Association of Evangelicals Turning Left?

Mark Tooley asks:

Is the NAE becoming a carbon copy of the left-wing and largely irrelevant National Council of Churches (NCC)?  As the evangelical Left continues to exploit the leadership void at the once staunchly conservative NAE, the similarities between the NCC’s notorious decline from mainline to sideline is sadly similar.

Ironically, even as evangelicals are now America’s largest demographic group, their supposed representatives at the NAE think they must turn Left to become more popular.

"The United States historically has been a leader in supporting international human rights efforts, but our moral vision has blurred since 9/11,” the NAE complained, in a statement called “An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Protecting Human Rights in an Age of Terror.”

At issue here is not the "rightness of torture" but a disposition to fault the U.S. in ways essentially unfair to the facts or general principles already in place.

. . . the drafters of the torture statement were hardly “conservative” or supportive of the War against Terror.  The 17 member committee, called “Evangelicals for Human Rights,” is comprised nearly exclusively of pseudo-pacifist

Tony Campolo: A Liberal "Evangelical" Pushing Left-Wing Politics

Tony Campolo has written a new book, Letters to a Young Evangelical.  I learned of it by reading Jordan Hylden's review in the February, 2007 issue of First Things.  Hylden titles his review "A Letter to Tony Campolo."  For those not familiar with Campolo, he is a prolific author, professor of Sociology, popular speaker, and self-attested Evangelical, but also a political liberal who reads the Bible with left-wing spectacles, along with others whom he terms "Red Letter Christians" (as in Bibles that print the words of Jesus in red).  Mark Tooley, whose analysis I have cited in a previous post in connection with Tony Campolo and the Evangelical Left, refers to "Red Letter Christians" as "Red Letter Leftists."  Clearly, this is no exaggeration, nor does it bear false witness.  Campolo is a man of the political left who reads the Bible accordingly.

Jordan Hylden writes in his letter (review) to Campolo:

. . . I'm so disappointed.  You start off by accusing conservative Christians of uncritically baptizing the Republican agenda, and you claim to offer a biblical

What's with Pastor Rick Warren's Comments about Syria?

Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily posts an article replete with an account of his correspondence with Pastor Rick Warren over comments Rick Warren made in Syria.  Earlier, Farah had posted a blistering attack on Rick Warren for saying stupid, irresponsible things and in general performing as a "useful idiot" for the Syrian regime.   Warren defended himself in an e-mail to his supporters which one blogger posted here. Farah's article responds to that explanation in a seemingly unanswerable way.  Unless there is something missing here, Rick Warren has the look of a man quite out of his depth.  I hope further developments will prove otherwise, but at this point his international persona looks foolish, or at best, naive. 

What is the "Emerging Church" Movement?

Scott McKnight answers the question in an address delivered at Westminster Theological Seminary, October 26-27, 2006.   Warning:  McKnight is a theologian and his answer, though highly readable, is comprehensive, and therefore lengthy.  (HT: Smart Christian)    Click here for an earlier post on the Emerging Church.

BISHOP CHARLES MASON'S FAMOUS PRAYER

Update 7/3/2014 - A reader commented that the links below have gone dead.  You can hear Bishop Mason praying at a number of YouTube sites.

(Original Post): A Black friend of mine has taught me a great deal about Black American culture .  He has also been a helpful tutor in bringing me up to speed (I still have a long way to go) on the history of the Black Church in America.   Recently he sent me an e-mail with a web address to an audio recording of a famous prayer within Black American Pentecostal circles.  It is a prayer by Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, the founder of the Church of God in Christ.   Bishop Mason offered this prayer at St. Paul's Church of God in Christ in 1948 when he was 82 years old.  To hear the prayer, click here, and then click on the link to the "Bishop's Prayer Part 1" and advance it to 10:33 on the clip.  I found the prayer instructive, full of interest and inspiration.  It's just under 12 minutes long.

IS CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM A GREATER THREAT THAN RADICAL ISLAM?

It's pretty scary when people, who should know better, declare that Christian fundamentalism poses a greater threat than radical Islam.  The level of ignorance -- or is it pure unmitigated bigotry? --  is quite breathtaking.  As I said, this is truly scary.   Click here to read Jonah Goldberg's response to a Bryan Burrough review of Andrew Sullivan's book,  The Conservative Soul.   Goldberg rightly refers to the Burrough review as "silly."   I've reproduced Goldberg's response below.   [See also my earlier post On the Subject of Theocons...] 

THE EMERGENT CHURCH - A FIRST POST

I haven't written anything on the "Emerging Church" because I haven't felt it was something I was supposed to spend much time concentrating on.  That will probably change at some point.  But for now, I'll simply link to an article by John Mark Reynolds which offers something of an introduction and a mild critique.   Here is Mark Driscoll on a 3 1/2 minute video offering his own introduction to "Emergent vs. Emerging Churches."  Finally, Justin Taylor summarizes Darrell Bock on emerging church (or hear it from Darrell himself).   (HT: Andrew Jones)

THE WORKS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS ONLINE

Click here.   This is from the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.  Materials are indexed by date, topics, and Scripture reference.    (HT: Andrew Jackson) 

RANDALL BALMER'S ACCUSATION THAT EVANGELICALS SUPPORT TORTURE

Once again, I note that Mark D. Tooley has to set the record straight concerning false allegations leveled against evangelicals.  Two days ago I referenced Tooley's article about left wing evangelicals, and now today Tooley responds to Randall Balmer's much-publicized accusation that evangelicals favor torture.   After denying Balmer's claims, Tooley concludes his response with these words:

The Balmer thesis about evangelical support for torture is part of a larger, more common thesis on the Left. According to this lore, conservative religous activists in the U.S. are mindless robots of the Bush Administration and unquestioning supporters of U.S. imperialism. They are, wittingly or unwittingly, the agents of evil.

 

But recent studies by Baylor University and the Pew Research Center show that conservative evangelicals in the U.S. do in fact have the mental competence to differentiate among their faith, their nation, and their politics. The real sin of conservative evangelicals, in the eyes of the secular and Religous Left, is that they do not accept the Left's thesis that the U.S. is the primary architect of terror and aggression in the world today.

Click here to read the whole thing.

EVANGELICALS AND OTHERS ON THE RELIGIOUS LEFT

Mark D. Tooley continues to do an excellent job keeping tabs on the strategies and fulminations of the religious left -- including self-proclaimed evangelicals such as Tony Campolo, Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, Brian McClaren, and others.  They have started "Red Letter Christians" which espouses political concerns of the left.  Tooley writes:

Red Letter Christians, like much of the Religious Left, want to avoid or deny traditional religious teachings about sexual mores and human life. Instead, they claim that God has endorsed very specific policy proposals about expanding the Food Stamp program, increasing the Minimum Wage, paying more homage to the United Nations, shutting down the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo, accepting apocalyptic claims about global warming and embracing the consequent increased regulation of the private economy, opposing nearly all U.S. military action, and faulting the U.S. and the West for nearly all global poverty, while defining foreign aid as a reparation that is never high enough, whether that aid is actually effective in reducing human suffering or not.

In short, Red Letter Christians want to demote the issues to which the Bible speaks directly in favor of other issues dear to the secular Left that rely on a grossly expansionist interpretation of the Bible. For the Red Letter crowd, Jesus’ concern about the poor means a larger federal welfare state. The Bible’s story of God’s creation of the earth must mean that the U.S. has to endorse the Kyoto Accord. Messianic prophecies about world peace are interpreted to demand disarmament and abrogation of U.S. sovereignty.

More tracking of the liberal left can be found at the Institute on Religion and Democracy website.

SERMONS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM NOTED O.T. SCHOLAR, DR. WALTER KAISER

I've written before of Prof. Gordon Fee's online lectures on Galatians.  Since then I've learned that Dr. Walter Kaiser, well-known evangelical Old Testament scholar [booklist here] and former President of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, has a number of seminary chapel messages available online.  They are all the more valuable for being Biblical studies of such books as Daniel, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Nehemiah, Exodus, Matthew, and Hebrews.  Other sermons of his are online also.

ON THE SUBJECT OF THEOCONS...

Here's an historically interesting little quote:

“There is a mighty task before us and it welds us together.   It is to make the United States a mighty Christian Nation, and to Christianize the world.” 

— Woodrow Wilson.

(HT: Jonah Goldberg)

I posted the above and then realized that the subject of an alleged theocratic threat has achieved hysteria-like levels in certain contemporary circles.  Rich Lowry over at National Review Online  has an excellent article surveying the facts and calming the fears.    He mentions, but doesn't link to, Ross Douthat in First Things, "Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy" and Peter Steinfels in the American Prospect, "Be Not Afraid".

"60 Minutes," David Kuo, and "Faith-Based Initiatives"

David Kuo's appearance on "60 Minutes" last Sunday has stirred a good bit of interest and controversy.   "60 Minutes" introduced Kuo with these words:

David Kuo is an evangelical Christian and card-carrying member of the religious right, who got a job in the White House in the president’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He thought it was a dream-come-true: a chance to work for a president whose vision about compassionate conservatism would be matched with sweeping legislation to help the poor.

But Kuo says the so-called compassion agenda has fallen short of its promise and he blames President Bush for that in his new book.

As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, he also says the White House was a place that cynically used religion for political ends and that White House aides ridiculed the very Christian leaders who helped bring Mr. Bush to office.

In his book, Kuo wrote that White House staffers would roll their eyes at evangelicals, calling them "nuts" and "goofy."

Asked if that was really the attitude, Kuo tells Stahl, "Oh, absolutely. You name the important Christian leader and I have heard them mocked by serious people in serious places."

To those deeply upset by these "revelations," Jonah Goldberg over at NRO has some useful words.

EVANGELICALS DO NOT READ

This morning a friend e-mailed me the following comment from Dennis Prager, the Jewish talk show host and author of numerous books.  I have long considered Prager one of the sharpest thinkers "out there."

"One thing I noticed about Evangelicals is that they do not read.  They do not read the Bible, they do not read the great Christian thinkers, they have never heard of Aquinas.  If they're Presbyterian, they've never read the founders of Presbyterianism.  I do not understand that.  As a Jew, that's confusing to me.  The commandment of study is so deep in Judaism that we immerse ourselves in study.  God gave us a brain, aren't we to use it in His service?  When I walk into an Evangelical Christian's home and see a total of 30 books, most of them best-sellers, I do not understand.  I have bookcases of Christian books, and I'm a Jew.  Why do I have more Christian books than 98 percent of the Christians in America?  That is so bizarre to me."   -  The Wittenburg Door magazine.

That indictment made me sad, almost ill.  I am well familiar with it, but Prager put it in a particularly stark way.  I went on the internet to see if I could locate the original interview.   Though the interview itself is not available on the internet, it apparently can be found in a 1990 Door interview, issue #114 - "A Civilization that believes in nothing."