I stayed the night in Room 403 last night with battered, beautiful Erin… She woke up around 715 this morning and was in her typical good spirits. She remained chipper & upbeat for most of the day, especially through the flurry of visitors she had today (I think, beyond Thomas, Melissa, Vale, Mr. & Mrs. Eades & I, there were fifteen visitors today. You guys are amazing).

I think Erin would join me in saying thanks to God & you, the body of Christ, and how you have responded. There have been so many phone calls and so many people bringing clothes, toiletries, books, movies, and other things to replace what she lost. The body of Christ has been a wonderful picture of community- rallying in prayer, giving time & things, and, ultimately “filling up in [your] flesh what is still lacking in regards to Christ’s afflictions.” Thank you for showing us pictures of Christ’s love.

As for Erin herself, she received her “corset,” (Melissa & I want to have a contest to see who can come up with the pimpest design for it- in the lead are Robby’s offer to cover it in cloth, my idea to make it look like a shot-through-bullet-proof vest, Mr. Eades’s skeleton proposal, and Wonder Woman) as she lovingly calls it today, and she made her first venture into a wheelchair, which will be her vehicle for the next 6-8 weeks. It was a rough adventure, but Erin’s looking forward to building some spectacular biceps (and abs, as a part of her back rehab).

Mr. Eades will be building a ramp so that she can stay at Thomas & Melissa’s once she leaves here. Thank you to all of you who so graciously offered your home (I think the count stands at 5- you guys are ridiculous).

Erin’s trying to go to sleep now, so I think I’m going to shut the computer and watch the rest of the UGA debacle on mute.

I’m sitting next to Erin in Brookwood Medical Center, waiting for her to fall asleep so that I can take a picture of her in her hospital bed, tubes and all. Still cute… Until then, I figured I’d just give a little bit of an update on her & the state of Vestavia Park apartments. I put several more pictures on Thirty Travelers & Melissa Richie, Erin’s sister, put some information on her blog. 

I was reminded of a quote from Derek Webb when I read this excerpt from Mark Driscoll, who recently released a new book entitled Death By Love: Letters from the Cross. Webb, if I remember correctly, said that the gospel must be both beautiful and offensive. If it is not both, then it is not the gospel that we are preaching. He then went on to reference The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, where one of the children asks if Aslan, the Great Lion, is safe. The response received is remarkable: “No, he is not safe… but he is good, and he is the king.”

Driscoll: “The curious paradox of the atoning death of a bloody Jesus rising above the plane of human history with a mocking crown of thorns is that he is offensive in an attractive way. It is the utter horror of the cross that cuts through the chatter, noise, and nonsense of our day to rivet our attention, shut our mouths, and compel us to listen to an impassioned dying man who is crying out for the forgiveness of our sins and to ask why he suffered. Tragically, if we lose the offense of the cross, we also lose the attraction of the cross so that no one is compelled to look at Jesus. Therefore, Jesus does not need a marketing firm or a makeover as much as a prophet to preach the horror of the cross unashamedly. (Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, 33, emphasis added”

Driscoll on Joel Olsteen

I read Richard Dawkins’ (in)famous The God Delusion earlier this summer, and I have to say, I was tremendously disappointed. I had heard of scores of people who, after reading Dawkins or Hitchens or another one of the so-called “new atheists,” were suddenly empowered in their unbelief. I had hoped for some intriguing arguments that would lead me to delve into the depths of my faith and really search more and more into why I believe what I believe. Instead I read the poorly-researched, bullying (though deeply amusing and eloquent) words of a bitter scientist who, apparently, had spent more time using his thesaurus to belittle the religious than he had understanding their beliefs or finding sources (e.x. Dawkins seems to have done no scholarly research on the writing of the gospels- misrepresenting those who wrote them and when- or the accumulation of the canon, failed to note that Paul did not, in fact, write Hebrews, and it goes on…). Poor choice, sir.

Though I haven’t read the book just yet, Alister McGrath, a professor at Oxford that I admire, released a book in response entitled The Dawkins Delusion? and wrote an amusing, intelligent article (the first link is another article written by him) called “Do Stop Behaving As If You Are God, Professor Dawkins.”

Any way, all of that was a prelude to an article I found in the Wall Street Journal called “Look Who’s Irrational Now.” Interesting indeed.

An excerpt: The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won’t create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. And that’s not a conclusion to take on faith — it’s what the empirical data tell us.

“What Americans Really Believe,” a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.

Recommended books in response: The Reason for God by Tim Keller & Letter from a Christian Citizen by Douglas Wilson

I could’ve had such joy

I found this on Justin Taylor’s blog. His post was entitled “A Knock-Down Argument Against Dancing in Church.” I disagree. I expect Joel to implement this at Redeemer by Sunday.

And I heard so much about this video, I couldn’t NOT post it. It’s a song called “Jesus is my Friend.” If you haven’t seen it yet, just promise me you’ll make it to 1:45 in the song so you can hear Jesus being compared to a mountee who “always gets his man.” I wish I could hang out with the lead guitar player…

This comes from the end of Chapter 6 (”The Sovereignty of God”) of Pink’s The Attributes of God:

This is for Elaine…