Today, Pontificator posts an 1848 letter of John Henry Cardinal Newman to one Mrs. Froude, which reflects deeply on conversion and faith. It resonated with me as one in the midst of a not altogether smooth conversion to a church that audaciously claims it is the One and Only Church founded by Christ from a church that, finding no virtue in audacity, believes no such Church exists.
It’s award season in the blogophere. First, I give you Adrian Warnock’s call for Warnie Award nominations.
Its almost the season of goodwill. Now we are actually in the month of December I am happy to start speaking of Christmas. The Warnie awards are my own thank you gift to the Christian blogosphere for giving me such a lot of fun and for continuing to surprise me with the level of appreciation links and readership that comes the way of this blog.
Well, Christmas has come early this year! I have decided to give out one more warnie award this side of the new year, but I am going to do it a bit differently. I am for the first time opening nominations – so, people here are the rules:
1. You cannot nominate yourself (although you can pursuade someone else to nominate you!)
2. You cannot nominate a blog with a higher ecosystem ranking than me as they dont need the extra attention as much.
3. This is not a totally democratic contest and I will decide which of the blogs nominated to give a warnie to, and reserve the right to decide not to give anyone a warnie
4. Nominations should ideally be done via a post on your own blog thanking your favorite blogger for their blog, stating why you think they deserve a Warnie Award and linking back to this post.
5. Nominations will remain open for at least a week and possibly longerLet the nominations begin! Previous Warnie winners are especially encouraged to enter a nomination. I hope that this will be a fun way for a bunch of bloggers to thank those blogs that they enjoy reading and explain what it is about particular blogs that they like so much.
I nominate UnSpace. Rob doesn’t always write about specifically Christian topics, but I believe he always attempts to write as as Christian. I believe he does an admirable job of this. He and I sometimes disagree on matters of dogma and doctrine, but I take great comfort in knowing that our disagreements do not get in the way of us being brothers in the Body of Christ. He takes "Love thy neighbor" very seriously and endeavors to treat his neighbors with respect and dignity, no matter how badly they treat him. More importantly, he undertands that love is a verb, and he does what all Christians must, and so few of us do: feed, clothe, visit, etc Christ in the least of His brethren (c.f. Matthew 25), as a paramedic years ago and more recently helping out folks in New Orleans. Is Rob perfect? Is he a living saint? No. Certainly not. He’d be the first to tell you that. What matters, though, is that he strives to be a saint. Shouldn’t we all?
With the important stuff out of the way, I can now point out that voting for the 2005 Wizbang Weblog Awards begin December 5. Be sure to vote for your favorite blogs. Hopefully, I’ll be a finalist for either Best Religious Blog or Best of the Top 501 – 1000 Blogs. We’ll see when the finalists are announced December 4.
I can hear the fundies shrieking and hissing about this already…
"Whoever seeks peace and the good of the community with a pure conscience, and keeps alive the desire for the transcendent, will be saved even if he lacks biblical faith, says Benedict XVI."
On a side note, can anyone verify that my title is correct Latin? Instead of "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus [est]", i.e., "Outside the Church there is no salvation", I wanted "Might there be salvation outside the Church?".
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
18 Dec. 1959Dear Sieveking
(Why do you ‘Dr’ me? Had we not dropped the honorifics?) As things worked out, I wasn’t free to hear a single instalment of our serial [The Magician’s Nephew] except the first. What I did hear, I approved. I shd. be glad for the series to be given abroad. But I am absolutely opposed – adamant isn’t in it! – to a TV version. Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare. At least, with photography. Cartoons (if only Disney did not combine so much vulgarity with his genius!) wld. be another matter. A human, pantomime, Aslan wld. be to me blasphemy.
All the best,
yours
C. S. Lewis[Letter to BBC producer Lance Sieveking (1896-1972), who has written at the top: "The Magician’s Nephew" and, after the address, the phone number "62963".]
I’m a bit skeptical about the legitimacy of this. The author claims that honorifics have been dropped, but addresses the recipient by his last name and signs with his given initials. Lewis always preferred to be called Jack, and I believe he would sign a letter as "Jack Lewis" or just "Jack" if honorifics had indeed been dropped. I’m not a Lewis expert, just a fan. I’m sure Lewis stepson, Douglas Gresham, could shed some light on this. Anyone know how to get a hold of him?
Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has written a post about the use of foul language by Christians.
"According to a profile in Christianity Today entitled ‘The Positive Prophet,’ the liberal evangelical Tony Campolo would often begin a speech by saying:"
‘I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a sh*t. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said sh*t than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.’
"Although Campolo is overstating the point, he is right that evangelicals often take great offense to the use of such language and are surprised when it is used by Christians."
I have nothing new to say about cursing, but I will point folks to what I’ve already said on the subject.
[I’ve changed my mind and decided to reproduce the posts below instead of just linking to them. – Funky