This & That

Two indispensable bloggers: Milton at Transforming Sermons, Adrian at Adrian's UK Evangelical Blog. Indispensable. I'm inclined to check in on them nearly every day, because their work is always useful and pertinent.

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The blogroll. It keeps growing. I tried to shorten it, pare it down to the essentials, but I keep running into bloggers who are saying things so well, I know I'll want to check back frequently. So the blogroll grows. And grows. Latest addition: Wittingshire. Read, scroll, and read some more. There's fine writing here, there's poetry, and there are beautiful pics.

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Amy Loves Books has a take on the Narnia movie that is, in my opinion, spot on. She struggled at first to put it into words, but I'm glad she finally did.

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Rev-Ed at Attention Span has posted wisely on the question Is American Culture Compatible with Christianity? He finishes up with a crucial nugget: "We must be Christians first, citizens of our earthly country second. Equating all things American with Christianity is a fatal mistake that the Church cannot afford to make."

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I read it somewhere, but can't remember where. "Only Christians can put the Christ back in Christmas." Man, I want to shout that from the housetops. It's just silly to fight a war for Christmas, as if this holiday were some sort of legal requirement of the faith! Silly. Foolish. Dare I say it, un-Christian. I mean, Christmas has become, by and large, a secular celebration. And what else should we expect, after all, from a fallen and "secular" world? In fact, this secular Christmas is celebrated joyfully by people the world over who are simply NOT Jesus-people. Given that, how can we insist they celebrate a Jesus holiday? To them, it's just fine as is. To them, we Christians just sound cranky, belligerent, and distinctly ungenerous when we get on our high "put-Christ-back-in-Christmas" horse. Give it up, silly Christians. WE DO NOT OWN THE CULTURE. Never have. Never will. If you want to put Christ back in Christmas, do it yourself. That's all.