The Best
Religion Weblog, Period, and Other Year-End Notes
* I was
startled to read Books and Culture editor John Wilson
declare that sister publication Christianity Today’s blog is “the
best religion weblog, period” (scroll down to the review of “Christianity
and the Celts”). Has he checked all the nearly-1,000 blogs listed at
blogs4God? Not to
mention the numerous Buddhist, Islamic, etc blogs? Come to think of it, is
the CT blog
really a blog, as the term has come to be understood? It’s more of a regular
round-up of Christian news, rather than personal experience, comment and
reflection.
* After a
couple of New Kids on the Blog posts from me, Doug Raymond emails to remind
me of an Old Kid on the Blog,
fallible.com, the
personal web log of
Christian writer Katy Raymond.
It’s full of fun reflections on life, and has been among my
Favourite Links for
a while.
* I’ve
been reading “Roger’s
Version” by John Updike. It tells of a young computer nerd who is
determined to show that scientific evidence of the existence of God is
irresistibly accumulating. I thought of the book when I read on Kevin
Holtsberry’s always-interesting
Collected Miscellany
blog a
fascinating review of “The
Probability of God” by Stephen Unwin, who “set
as his objective to calculate the numerical probability that God exists”.
* Did you
know that the Christmas season can be a time when persecution of Christians
intensifies? Please read Paul Sharpe’s
excellent editorial on the subject, at the
Christian Monitor website:
Even without an
escalation of persecution over the festive season, many Christians will
spend Christmas and New Year under the yoke of severe oppression for their
faith in Christ. Some Christians in China's infamous labour (re-education)
camps, like Pastor Stephen, will ironically be forced to spend up to 20
hours a day making Christmas lights that will be sold in the West.
*
Christian Monitor carries links to disturbing articles,
here and
here,
about moves to marginalize the Christian majority of Papua (Irian Jaya, the
Western half of New Guinea), which is part of Indonesia. With the world
distracted by events in Iraq, it appears that
The violent Islamist
militia, Laskar Jihad - linked both to Jemaah Islamiyah blamed for the Bali
bombing and to Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qa’ida - has also been moving forces to
Papua since 2002 and now has a large presence there including an office in
the town of Sarong, some 2,000 fighters and twelve training camps. Laskar
Jihad appears to be cooperating with the Indonesian military that seems to
be planning to use it as an auxiliary militia. Laskar Jihad was the main
mover in the atrocities against Christians in the Malukus and in
Sulawesi in which
approximately 30,000 people were killed and nearly half a million forced to
flee their homes as refugees. Its goal is to ensure Muslim dominance in
every region of Indonesia, using violent jihad to scatter Christian
population centres.
* And
finally, a request for a plug:
I wanted to bring to
your attention our Christian internet radio station and was hoping you might
plug it to folks reading your blog who might want to listen to a Christian
radio station while they're surfing or posting. The name is "The Shepherd
Rocks!" and we are broadcasting, Christians all over the world are listening
and you're invited. Radio installation instructions can be found on the web
site of our host, which is at
http://www.feedmysheepfoundation.org.
We're playing Christian rock and praise and worship and plan to introduce
various radio shows in the near future as listeners’ tastes dictate.
Consider it done.
December 16th, 2003
