Pistis Faith Movement

I thought I was breaking new ground with my Pistis Faith post, but, sadly, someone else appears to have beaten me to it.

Either that or I’ve started a movement.

Encyclopedia Judaica Free Online

The Encyclopedia Judaica is a massive, expensive, respected reference work. Immediately upon looking up a word in the new Internet edition, I recognized the contributor who wrote the article: Yigael Yadin, famous Israeli leader and archaeologist. The entire work has been made available for free online by the generous donation of the couple you’ll see when you click here.

Update: Numbers of people come to my blog by searching for “Encyclopedia Judaica Free Online.” I’m sorry to have to inform you that that generous couple didn’t realize they were giving something away to the entire world. The site now reads, “Please note that the password is only available to members of Austin’s Jewish Community.”

Logos 4: Well Done, Aesthetic Department!

I’m compelled to say it: Logos 4 is a very attractive piece of software. This wannabe graphic designer has really enjoyed the visual improvements over Logos 3.

I hope to write more as time passes about the functionality of the interface, but so far I’m impressed with that, too.

Conspiracy, Conspiracy!

I regularly receive e-mails from a concerned friend alerting me to conspiracies to destroy America. I’ve often struggled to know what to say to him, because if his claims are not provable, they’re equally impossible to disprove! Wild-eyed, alarmist, a little wacky—but not absolutely disprovable. Kind of like the existence of a race of hostile marshmallow people on the back side of Pluto. You never know…

G. K. Chesterton has provided me one helpful key in dealing with such a problem, and I recently got a little more help from another incisive source, Westminster church history prof Carl Trueman. It boils down to two reasons why people give credence to conspiracy theories:

• Conspiracies rationalize our powerlessness. When our efforts to combat large-scale evils bear little fruit, it must be because a massive, organized “they” are out to get us.
• Conspiracies make us feel important. We’re not just minor cogs in a machine; if people out there are conspiring against us, we must be worth targeting!

That may sound a little patronizing, but what is the most loving, appropriate Christian response to excessive credulity? If I really believe the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord (Pro. 21:1), that all the nations are a drop in the bucket (Isa. 40:15; Ps. 2), my political activity, while zealous like everything I do for the Lord, won’t be infused with anxiety or agitation. I won’t grasp for outlandish explanations for my nation’s woes (Isa. 8:12-13). Indwelling sin, “the rulers of the darkness of this world,” and God’s ultimate sovereignty are reason enough (Ps. 103:19). And I won’t feel the urge to endlessly forward right-wing (or left-wing!) political action notices to all my friends.

Sometimes a little visit to snopes.com or an earnest attempt to find a responsible voice is all a would-be forwarder needs to do. Generally speaking, however, it takes time to develop a feel for which voices are worth listening to. Responsible voices tend to coalesce into a community. They cite one another’s work, even if they disagree over it. They don’t sound breathless or screechy. They do a lot of homework. They write very well English, and they write a lot of it. They don’t accuse all their opponents of being secret agents of Fidel Castro or (on the other side) Pat Robertson. And they don’t find conspiracies under every rock.

Living with a Typography Nerd

My wife says she knows what it’s like to live with someone who talks like this.

Just one egregious example from the Greenville area: Cherrydale Point. Who chose that awful logotype? Poorly trained hamsters? Communists?!

And don’t get me started on PowerPoints…