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I’m about halfway through Nancy Pearcy’s “Total Truth” and wanted to share a few thoughts about it. Judging by the blurbs on the book jacket and some of the reviews it’s received on Amazon and in the blogsphere, it seems that Pearcy has struck a nerve among thinking Evangelicals. And “Total Truth” is an excellent book. Pearcy does an admirable job demonstrating why we must never separate life into “sacred” and “secular” domains. All truth is God’s truth, and genuine Christianity claims to speak to all of life (hence the title “Total Truth”).
Yet, there are many ways in which I think this book could have been much better. What I’d like to explore in this post is Pearcy’s description of her own conversion and what it says about the nature of faith.

I’m having tecnnical problems with this site. Please stand by.

This is from Isaiah 40:6-8:

“All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.”

Compared to God we are as transient and inconsequential as wild grasses that live only for a short season. All our “glory” — our buildings, books, songs, stories, arguments, knowledge — are as weightless to God as a wildflower that topples in a breeze.

It’s good to remember our place. We are not the source or arbiter of Truth. We can’t presume to make final and timeless judgements about anything. We can at our best bloom for our brief season, turning our faces to soak up and reflect the light of Him who made us.

So here’s my first video blog entry, called “Cleanup Day.” Ok, it’s pretty lame, but it sure was fun to play around with Windows Media Maker. Click on the picture below to download and play the file.

Whatever your view on the war in Iraq (I confess I’ve been skeptical), you have to salute the courage of the Iraqi people who went to the polls this weekend. The turnout of eligible voters apparently was greater than it typically is for Presidential elections in the U.S. It shows how freedom is valued when it not simply assumed.

Reminder: If you’re blogging this weekend, don’t forget the First Emerging Bloggers’ Carnival.

Have I been climbing the Himalayas again, or just messing with a digital picture of snow drifts in New Jersey? You decide.

This will introduce a new feature here at Through a Glass Darkly, titled “Through the Looking Glass.” Through the Looking Glass is a semi-sort-of-regular round-up of recent blog posts I’ve found interesting. Enjoy.

Making room for mystery: Today I discovered a delightful site called Tabletalk. It’s the blog of Presbyterian pastor Craig S. Williams, whom I envy greatly because he has more, and nicer, guitars than I do. As Craig describes it, the site’s title comes from Martin Luther’s conversations around the eating (and drinking) table. Craig’s most recent entry, Making Room for Mystery, is about how our faith is a relationship, not a simple prepackaged plan. I’m finding I like these Presbyterian-pastor-Fuller-Seminary-graduate-interested-in-missional-and-postmodern-church sites. Maybe I’m finding out through them who I am.

Why we need church (small “c”): Alan Creech writes “[t]here has never really been a time in the history of The Church (as a whole) that being connected to Christ has been separated from being connected to a community of others who are connected to Christ. ” He makes some good observations about why individual Christians still need to remain connected to such a community.

Faded and Stressed Out Video: Aaron at The Voiz is feeling Faded, Spent, and Stressed Out, and he has the videoblog entry to prove it. Check it out.

Blogging Walls?: Dr. Michael Russell at Eternal Perspectives raises some important questions about the balkanization of the faith-based blogsphere.

Aaron at The Voiz has piqued my interest in “video blogging.” Another geeky thing to fill up my time. Nooooooo! Aaron’s got some great stuff. Check out, for example, An Autophbe in Me.