Tim Ellsworth

From Louis Berkhof (1873-1957), in “Foundations of Christian Education,” by Berkhof and Cornelius Van Til.

The Reformed Christian, who believes that the child is the image-bearer of God, naturally proceeds on the assumption that the most fundamental truth may not be ignored in any part of his education, and especially not in his school education. This fact may well be stressed in our day. In view of the fact that the influence of the Christian home is waning, and that the church can devote only a couple of hours a week to the religious training of its youth, the school is easily the most important educational agency of the present. Is it not the height of folly even from a purely educational point of view to let the most important agency in education ignore that which is most essential and most fundamental in the life of the child? And can Christian parents reasonably expect their children to be imbued with a spirit of true religion if they persist in sending them to a school where for twenty-four hours a week they are taught in a spirit that is fundamentally irreligious, if not positively anti-Christian? The answer can only be a decided negative. And experience will bear out the correctness of this answer. America is today reaping in its churches what it has sown in its schools. It has sown through the secularized schools, and it is reaping a purely naturalistic religion. (Emphasis in original)

From a discussion on Mike and Mike this morning:

If you replace the tomato sauce and cheese with peanut butter and bacon, is it still a pizza?

Kim Riddlebarger has an interesting post about Mike Huckabee and his confusion over his role as a minister and a candidate for public office.

When viewed from the perspective of the two kingdoms, every Christian is simultaneously a citizen of both kingdoms and our theological beliefs should inform how we behave as citizens. But there’s no distinction of kingdoms with Huckabee in a pulpit, and Huckabee’s “soldiers in God’s army” are people who will serve his political cause. In other words, they’ll vote for him and encourage others to do the same. Fine for a political rally. Not fine for a church service.

Hat tip: Larry

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In an exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated, Brian McNamee stands by his testimony that he injected Roger Clemens with steroids.

Clemens, of course, denies those allegations and has filed a defamation lawsuit against McNamee. In a press conference Monday, Clemens played a taped segment from a telephone conversation with McNamee — which, as far as I’m concerned, didn’t prove anything.

So, you’ve got two different versions here. Who do you believe, and why?

Larry wants to know if he overreacted to a halftime devotional at a recent Upwards basketball game for 1st-3rd graders.

However, leaving aside the theological issues around ‘Jesus loves everyone in the world’, my feeling is it is never OK to trivialize sin in this way. Even very young children are capable of understanding the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin. They must in fact understand that in my opinion before they can repent and be saved. Which brings me to another point, there was no mention at all of repentance - just Jesus loves you no matter what.

Go tell Larry what you think.

Here’s a moving story from the Los Angeles Times about the growing number of men who are experiencing grief over abortions they’ve supported in the past.

Jason Baier talks often to the little boy he calls Jamie. He imagines this boy — his son — with blond hair and green eyes, chubby cheeks, a sweet smile.

But he’ll never know for sure.

His fiancee’s sister told him about the abortion after it was over. Baier remembers that he cried. The next weeks and months go black. He knows he drank far too much. He and his fiancee fought until they broke up. “I hated the world,” he said.

Baier, 36, still longs for the child who might have been, with an intensity that bewilders him: “How can I miss something I never even held?”

The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore writes about how video games have turned his kids into mindless zombies.

The trouble began last summer when my sons started spending virtually every unsupervised hour camped out in front of the computer screen engaged in multiplayer role games like World of Warcraft and Counterstrike. At the start of this craze, I wrote it off as merely a normal phase of adolescence. I was confident that, at 14 and 16, they would soon be more interested in chasing real-life girls than virtual video hoodlums.

Boy, was I wrong. Their compulsion became steadily more destructive. They grew increasingly withdrawn, walking around like the zombies from “Night of the Living Dead.” Unless I pried them (forcibly) from the computer, they would spend five or six hours at a time absorbed in these online fantasy worlds. My wife tried to calm me down by observing that “at least they’re not out having sex or doing drugs.” But how would that be any worse?

Talk about the Iowa caucus last night if you’d like, or anything else for that matter.

You’ve undoubtedly been awaiting with great anticipation the annual predictions from Pat Robertson, which he claims are inspired by God. So, for 2008, Pat says we’re in for a lot of worldwide violence, a U.S. recession and a stock market crash by 2010.

Quite the cheery chap, isn’t he?

“The Lord was saying that there’s going to be violence and chaos in the world,” Robertson said on his “700 Club” news-and-talk show.

“We’ve just begun to see what’s going to happen, and the nations are going to be convulsed with violence,” he said, citing as an example unrest in Pakistan after the death of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pat’s track record on these predictions is, shall we say, less than stellar — as Religion News Service points out. (For some reason, the RNS permalinks aren’t working, so this link takes you to the main page. To see their entire post, look for the one entitled “Pat’s Picks.”)

In 2007, he said the U.S. would be hit by a “major terrorist attack… The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.” Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

In 2006, Robertson said the coasts of America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, will be lashed by storms. 2006 was unusual, say scientists, in that no major hurricanes made landfall in the U.S. In general, it was a very slow year for storms.

In 2005, Roberts said:”What I heard is that Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory and that his second term is going to be one of triumph, which is pretty strong stuff.” Bush’s approval ratings hover at less than 30 percent; I haven’t seen any great triumphs yet. You?

But old Pat keeps hacking away.

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FCA compiles list of 2007’s top Christian sports stories
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After an extended break from the blog, I’ll be back to posting this week.

It was nice not to have to deal with the blog for a while, and I’m not sure that my posting from this point forward will continue to keep pace with what it has been in the past. If you haven’t already done so, I’d encourage you to subscribe to my feed so that you can monitor new content.  You can even subscribe to a feed for the comments posted here. For a feed reader, I recommend Bloglines or Google Reader.

For those unfamiliar with using RSS feeds, I’ll refer you to what I’ve posted previously about the matter.