Are all religions the same?

In an interesting synchronicity, I had taught on God among the "gods" in Christian Thought on Wednesday (coming down squarely on the side of God being the only real one, of course!), when I read this blog that night: http://mondaymorninginsight.com/blog/post/are_all_religions_the_same/ which is a reposting of

http://philcooke.com/are-all-religions-the-same/

What is your response?

Happy New Year!

A reminder: I will not be in town next Sunday (Jan 9, 2011) and so we'll take a break from our study.

In class today I mentioned a couple of resources:

• the books by Robert Shank, Life in the Son (ISBN 978-1556610912), dealing with the topic of perseverance ("eternal security"), and Elect in the Son (ISBN 978-1556610929), dealing with the topic of election/predestination. Both are available at Amazon, but they're also listed on bookfinder.com for much less.
• the citation from C.S. Lewis, coming from p. 130 of The Problem of Pain:  

  I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes’ to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free. 

  Thank you!
  w

Conversation for the end of Chapter 5

In our discussion today, I mentioned a quotation from William Blake. Here's the text I cited:

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

This actually comes from a much longer poem entitled "Auguries of Innocence", and you can see the whole of it at http://www.artofeurope.com/blake/bla3.htm.

I also mentioned a book entitled Well-Intentioned Dragons, written by Marshall Shelley. You can obtain a used copy for a good price at http://www.bookfinder.com.

As always, I count it a privilege to be able to study God's Word with friends, and wish you an excellent and blessed week!

Sermon in chapel at NU - Christ's cry of abandonment

I've been asked for a link to a sermon I recently preached in chapel at NU (Dec 6th, 2010) from the last portion of Mark's Gospel. I focused primarily on Christ's cry of abandonment on the cross, discussing whether he was indeed abandoned by his Father, and what this means for us in situations of stress.

The mp3 file is available at http://eagle.northwestu.edu/chapel_mp3/20101206.mp3.

Blessings on you and yours in this most marvelous of seasons!

Links for podcasts in iTunes

THESE ARE NOW DEFUNCT AND NO LONGER AVAILABLE

For anyone who would like to listen in on the discussion from our class sessions, you can do so in iTunes by clicking on

itpc://panopto.northwestu.edu/Panopto/Podcast/Podcast.ashx?courseid=1c9436a0-d6b2-48ec-869d-ace7f4113d9c&type=mp4

If you prefer to use a different RSS reader, the link for that is

http://panopto.northwestu.edu/Panopto/Podcast/Podcast.ashx?courseid=1c9436a0-d6b2-48ec-869d-ace7f4113d9c&type=mp4

Now for the fine print:

You are welcome to listen to these, to engage in conversation on the sessions here on this blog or elsewhere (I have heard of a Bible study group that uses these as part of their study), but no commercial use may be made of them. Basically, you can't sell them or claim them as your own - the copyright  belongs to someone else (me, in this case).

Thanks!

Opening the door...

In response to a request from fellow students of the Scriptures (currently referring to our class in Hebrews, but open to any who are interested...) I'm starting a blog which enables "a conversation among fellow seekers", as our title suggests. Pretty much anything which contributes to our community is fair game, although the specific request was a venue where we could continue our discussion from Bible study together. A couple of ground rules, which may be modified as needed:
1. Please - no ad hominen attacks. I expect that we'll disagree with each other at times (could identical clones really have community??), but while you can challenge ideas, no attacking the person. "I disagree with your faith in Star Trek" is okay; "I think you're stupid" is not.
2. I reserve the right to moderate or limit comments if they would be offensive to the community. I hope that we'll have uncomfortable discussions, but I'm going to step in if I consider something to be rude, blasphemous, degrading, demeaning, and the like.

With those necessary but also awkward stipulations out of the way, welcome to the conversation!