by Virgil Vaduva

"If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe" - Søren Kierkegaard

My friend JR kindly reviewed Peter Rollins' latest book, Insurrection - give it a read if you have a chance: http://jrforasteros.com/2011/11/28/insurrection-by-peter-rollins/

Shall we not put an end to the bickering?!

"For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe." 1 Tim 4:10

"For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid..." Rom 3:3

This past Sunday, for the Gospel Doctrine class that I teach in our ward, the lesson was on Matthew 24 and entailed about the coming of Christ. As I prepared for this lesson, much of the information brought me back to those days when I was outside of the Latter-day Saint faith, and when I had began studying about Preterism.

Going over the New Testament Teachers Manual for the Gospel Doctrine Class that I teach (Yes, I have subsequently returned back to the Mormon Faith), the lesson that will be discussed to 15/16 year old's is that on Matthew 24.

by Ryan Bassett
Hans Hermann Hoppe has been widely recognized for stating the advantages of a traditional monarchy over that of what is essentially mob rule, that is, Democracy. While it is true that Hans Hoppe is not a monarchist but rather an anarcho-capitalist his insights into the frailties and destructive nature of Democracy are thorough and convincing. His brilliant work, Democracy: The God That Failed, is to date probably his best scholarly work on the subject.

I have deliberated for a considerable length of time over how to approach this subject in a way that’s not considered completely disrespectful to my fellow Christians who are non-Preterists at this time and yet at the same time remain forthright and sincere in my presentation of the actual nature of Futurist Christianity.

…to the 64 million dollar question, which is….”Why do bad things happen to good people?” More significantly and specifically, “Why do bad things happen to GOD’S People?” This is a question that has been debated and discussed in theological circles for generations – centuries even.

by Andrew Perriman
I set out a while back to write a general piece on the unbiblical doctrine of “hell” as part of a glossary or lexicon of key concepts but got side-tracked. Since then the brouhaha over Rob Bell’s book has prompted extensive reflection on the matter, and it now seems worth providing a rough summary of the position that I have argued for in a number of recent posts. Unfortunately, it has turned out rather longer than intended, but hopefully it will be the last word on the subject of “hell” for a while.

By Trevin Wax
In 2003, I was a college student in Romania in need of some encouragement from pastors and teachers back in the U.S. An American pastor friend of mine recommended I listen to the preaching of two pastors: Rob Bell and James MacDonald. (Amazing that just eight years ago the ministries of these two men were seen as complementing each another!)

I downloaded dozens of Rob’s sermons from his early years at Mars Hill. I liked his preaching style and enjoyed his sermons from Leviticus. His most memorable message, “The Goat Has Left the Building,” ended with a powerful illustration of the truth that Christ bears our sins

Sam Frost has now made it public that he has indeed left Full Preterism officially. Sam didn’t really have to tell many of us as we have seen his partial Preterism tendencies for years. Sam values his influence over those who are conflicted along with him on how to rightly divide the full Preterist hermeneutic and will continue to offer those who haven’t fully grasped the full Preterist hermeneutic refuge under his wings. I expect Sam will begin setting himself up as the alternative approach to full Preterism so that he may rescue the conflicted for Reformed orthodoxy. I don't believe we have heard the last of Sam Frost in full Preterist circles.

by Virgil Vaduva
The term Deep Politics was created by English Professor Peter Scott to illustrate how cultures, societies, nations and groups of people tend to collectively and involuntarily suppress facts because of the social and psychological cost of not doing so. In other words, humans collectively suppress facts which are inconvenient and difficult to face, and often do this involuntarily, almost at an unconscious level. There is no better time when Deep Politics has been readily manifested in the public lives of Americans than now, when the public has been suddenly forced to face the actions of its Government, all thanks to WikiLeaks.

Just a few months ago I did a short presentation at the Ohio Information Security Forum on the dangers of CSS and Javascript browser history hijacking, with an actual demonstration on how your web browser's history can be parsed for interesting data for the purpose of harvesting information about your browsing habits.

A while back a team from the University of California, San Diego, came out with a white paper titled An Empirical Study of Privacy-Violating Information Flows in JavaScript Web Applications. The team compiled a list of websites which are using the javascript history hijacking technique, including Answers in Genesis in the list of evaluated sites, along many other websites serving pornography, malware and other malicious content. AiG did not use the CSS-only technique I presented at OISF and only focused on Javascript+CSS, meaning that a user that had Javascript turned off in his browser would have been safe from this kind of attack.

Mark 13 is rife with material that forms part of the popular Christian imagination about “the end times.” By “the end times,” of course, I mean, the vision of the future era that will precede the coming of Jesus from heaven to earth.

But the passage is set up so that readers will view it as a prophetic warning about being a follower of Jesus in the face of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as occurred in AD 70.

I'll be blunt.
I’m going to just come right out and say it:

I hate Jesus Junk.

You heard me. I hate Jesus Junk. I hate that key chain flash light with a bible verse printed on the side, and the Jesus fish shaped eraser, and I hate “TestaMints,” All those cheap plastic novelties made in China with a scripture verse stamped on the side, I hate them all.