Correction: NUMBERED random update!
- I am in the process of putting together a team to start a new church service. We had a meeting last Sunday night (and will have another this Sunday night) to cast the vision/have a conversation with those interested. It’s a missional expression of Heartland, we’re wanting the gospel to reach new people, new areas, of Fort Wayne. We’re interested in how a community that worships together in time-honored and home-grown ways can be formed as the Body of Christ to be an embodied witness to an emerging culture. We’re wanting to discover how the regular rhythms of worship, prayer, eating, partying, confessing, forgiving, listening and speaking can shape our life together and draw others to life in Christ. We aren’t meeting publicly yet, but we will likely start worshiping together fairly regularly in December in homes, etc. Drop me an email if it’s something that interests you and we can have coffee.
- I found out the first essay for my Master’s is due earlier than I thought! January 1, 2008 is the deadline, and I’m trying to figure out if I can finish it by then. 5000 words. I’ve narrowed things down and need to choose between two topics to write on. The first is a quotation from John Goldingay: "Without the assumption that texts have determinate meaning, interpretation as a cognitive activity becomes logically impossible." Discuss. The other is a quote from N.T. Wright: "Knowledge… although in principle concerning realities independent of the knower, is never itself independent of the knower" Discuss. So if you have any great ideas on one of those topics, let me know! Or even some good resources for research.
- I just finished producing an album of songs written at Heartland. It will be released through Declaration Music in early December. That’s a big weight off my shoulders should provide some more time to focus on the other projects.
- Planning to attend this conference in Chicago as it relates to how preaching will be done in the new service – I’ll also be to connecting with some friends who lead a like-minded church up there.
Back to it!
A possible source to consider for your paper is Elton Trueblood’s The Philosophy of Religion. Part I The Logic of Religion covers the Necessity of Philosophy, Faith & Reason, Possibility of Truth, Mystery of Knowledge and Nature of Evidence. Part II Theistic Realism covers the Theistic Hypothesis and the Evidences of Scientific, Moral, Aesthic, Historical and Religious Experiences. Also discusses challenges such as Marxist-Lenism (copyright 1957), Freud and Logical Positivism and problems such as Naturalism, Supernaturalism, World Religions, Evil, Determinism and Immorality/Survival. Although weighty at times, covers a vast landscape rather well. Paperback (out of print, about 280 pgs in IV parts.
For an outstanding, albeit technical, discussion of Science and Christianity (40 page chapter) if you want to incorporate any of that perspective in your paper………J. P. Moreland’s Scaling The Secular City.
Both of these books are Master’s level discourses.
Having written all this, why don’t I bring them so you can brouse and chose at will. BOB