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I recently bought an iPod, and I’m quickly becoming a podcasting addict. What a fantastic medium! I’ll be highlighting podcasts of interest here on the TGD blog from time to time. Also, I’m planning very soon to launch a TGD Podcast, which will include some of my own stuff as well as interviews with theologians, scholars, and other Christian leaders who don’t ordinarily get highlighted on the “MCM” (I think I’m coining this acronym — “Mainstream Christian Media”!). For example, I’ve made contacts with Wheaton Historian Mark Noll, Regent College Theologian Hans Boresma, and a NYC “Emerging” church planter, all of whom I hope to feature on upcoming podcasts.

Now, for the Harry Potter podcast: No, this isn’t an anti-Harry Potter diatribe. In fact, I love the Harry Potter books. I just wanted to give a pointer to “The Secrets of Harry Potter” pocast produced by Father Roderick of The Catholic Insider. It’s an entertaining look at details in the Harry Potter series that you probably will otherwise miss. The most recent episode, for example, examines the classical allusions in the names of charcters such as Bellatrix and Narcissa, and draws some parallels with Biblical themes of courage and faith in the face of evil. Great stuff! Here’s the RSS Feed for the podcast.

The Christianity Today blog has a good story on the inaptly-named “Justice Sunday II” that recently was held in Nashville. (Hat tip: Mirror of Justice). I share the dismay of the CT and MOJ bloggers about this farce. Supreme Court nominees are important, and there no doubt are many problems with the Court, but these concerns are grossly overstated and miss the Biblical concept of “justice” entirely. Biblical “justice” starts with what we do in our daily lives. When the evangelical “leaders” who stage things like “Justice Sundays” present a deep and consistent picture of compassion for “the least of these,” then maybe I’ll listen to something they might have to say about the U.S. Supreme Court. For now, they haven’t convinced me that they’re capable of anything beyond serving as Republican Party shills.

No, not that Osama. This is about a movie filmed in Afganistan after the fall of the Taliban. It concerns a girl who must pose as a boy (taking the name “Osama”) to support her family. If you love foreign films that give you a glimpse of other cultures, as I do, rent this one. Its portrayal of the humanity of ordinary Afgans is touching, but even more moving is its picture of the Taliban. These are no cartoonish monsters. Rather, they’re all-to-human monsters. Their treatment of Afgan women, boys, and girls is rooted in their own lust and greed, cloaked with a twisted form of religion that they use to justify their consciences. There are lessons here about human nature that go far beyond the Taliban itself.

We had a special speaker today in church, a guy who is now a professor at a Christian college but had long been affiliated with our church. His sermon, on the occasion of our church’s 80th anniversary, focused on carrying on the church’s solid legacy, and by and large was good. He made some offhand comments about “seeker sensitive” and “emerging” churches, however, that disturbed me.

Among those comments was a criticism of what he called a “smorgasbord” of spiritual practices. He was referring to the interest in the Emergent movement concerning ancient spiritual practices, such as contemplative prayer. Where’s the beef with a spiritual smorgasbord?

For those who subscribe to my RSS feed, please note that I’m directing my existing feed through Feedburner. This will enable me to track feed statistics, and also will facilitate the feed for the soon-to-be-announced Through a Glass Darkly podcast. Here’s the new feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/throughaglass

Thanks.

Brad Hightower tagged me for a book meme. Here are my answers:

1. Total number of books I own or have owned:

Far too many! I’m trying to cut back on the book-buying habit, particularly now that I have access to the City University of New York libraries (I’m a CUNY faculty member). But I probably buy 2-5 new books a month, if you include paperback novels. I supposed I’ve owned books numbering in the thousands, but haven’t nearly kept them all.

2. Last book I bought:

Violence, Hospitality and the Cross, by Hans Boersma. This is a very thoughtful study of theories of the Atonement. Boersma does an excellent job, in my estimation, of tying together the Moral Influence, Christus Victor, and Substitutionary models of the Atonement in a way that’s sensitive to concerns about divine violence yet faithful to scripture and Christian tradition.

3. Last book I read:

The First Crusade: A New History by Thomas Asbridge. Some thoughts stemming from that book are here.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me:

The Bible. In particular, Genesis 1-2, the Psalms and Paul’s pastoral epistles. This is too obvious, though, so I won’t really count it as one on the list.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. For me, Aslan embodies the riches and depths of God’s character — both His love and justice — and Narnia puts flesh and bones on the hope and longing for God’s presence.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. I love the way Lewis portrays sin. He challenges us to look beyond rules to reality and reminds us that obedience to God leads to fullness of the good things God has planned for the people He loves.

Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern World, by Stan Grenz and John Franke. There is much that is debatable about Grenz and Franke’s conclusions, but this book got me thinking about faith and epistemology in ways that I think have been spiritually and intellectually profitable for me.

Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, by George Marsden. This book, years ago now, helped me better understand my fundamentalist roots, which was a key for me in moving towards a more mature and thoughtful faith.

The Creationists, by Ronald Numbers. As I think about it, it’s odd that this book strikes me right now as one that “means alot” to me. This book is a history of the “creation science” movement from a non-Christian perspective. I haven’t read it in years, but I read it at a time when I was separating somewhat from my fundamentalist background, and it helped me understand that some of the things I had absorbed about the relationship between scripture and science weren’t essential to a vibrant, orthodox faith. Actually, I’d rather include this as a group of literature, including some books by Hugh Ross and others, that explore constructive ways to reconcile a high view of scripture with truth observed in general revelation.

I have to cheat and add one more book: Green Mars and the rest of the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Not only is Robinson’s Mars Trilogy glorious science fiction, it’s also deeply descriptive of many ways in which people adapt to and thrive in new environments today. (If any of my readers might be intersted in reading Robinson, I should warn them that there are scenes here and there in Robinson that are a bit racy — but overall it’s great reading.)

5. Two major books when I was a kid:

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I read it during math class sophomore year in high school. It fired my imagination like nothing else. I read it again this year after watching the films (and the DVD commentaries, special features, ect….). The arc of redemption running through the entire tale is wonderful. I’m not sure I realized it when I was 13, but I think the redemptive aspects of the story are what raise it to the level of a classic.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. I loved science fiction as a kid and I still love it. I, Robot was one of the first great sci-fi works that I consumed on summer vacations at the beach.

New pictures, hot off the memory card: see them here.

Here are some recent pictures of my time in Ireland. It’s been quite busy this week — class is in full swing, I’m trying to finish a paper for publication, and the American Bar Association site visitor along with another Professor from the law school are here checking out our program. I should be able to supplement these pictures soon.

This week has been very busy as I’ve started teaching my class in Ireland. Here are some new pictures from Belgium and Ireland.

I don’t have any pictures today because I didn’t travel. We had lectures this morning, and in the afternoon I went to the dentist (to relieve and infected crown) and did my laundry. This evening I stayed in Leuven and had a fabulous dinner: green bean and bacon salad, followed by lamb tenderlion with sauce creme au poive, and a Leffe Triple (Belgian Trappist beer, the lighter version), seated at an outside table on a cobblestone street overlooking the 15th-Century town hall and St. Pieterskerk, a gothic church constructed in 1425, all for 35 Euro. It just doesn’t get much better than that. Then I ambled through town and got a marvelous ice cream and ate it while strolling through the park. I found some of my students camped out at a cafe table in the Oude Markt, a large open area flanked by cafes and brasseries. There I enjoyed a Leffe dark and some good conversation before rambling back to my room.

Leuven is just wonderful. It’s too bad we’re leaving tomorrow, although I’m looking forward to Galway, and I hope I get back to Leuven someday for a more extended stay.