The No Kool Aid Zone

This is the week of the major league baseball All-Star game, the fabled “Midsummer Classic”, really the only All-Star contest in any of the major sports that is remotely watchable. It seems the right time, then, to offer Christian Carnival LXXVIII as the “All-Star Edition”, employing baseball terminology as a grid for organizing this week’s 56 All-Star posts!

Leadoff - The leadoff hitter “sets the table” for the offense, gets the offense going, hopefully, by getting on base, the most important role of a leadoff guy. Some managers make the mistake of thinking that a leadoff guy has to be fast…now, that’s a nice asset, but as they say, “you can’t steal first base!” The ideal leadoff man does have speed, but most importantly, he’ll do what it takes to get on: a good hitter for average, with a good eye at the plate and the right amount of patience: that’s the description of the leadoff hitter I want on my team—and sure, it doesn’t hurt if he can fly as well! This is why Rickey Henderson is, far and away, the greatest leadoff man of all time: he could do it all. Our leadoff hitters in this edition of the Carnival have done a good job of setting the table, getting us started right!

I’m going to lead off myself—I was always an on-base guy anyway (and in my day, I’d swipe second if you weren’t careful!). I’m sharing My Favorite Baseball Moments to get us in the mood…

Dory at Wittenberg Gate clears the bases with Baking Cookies: A mother answers her child’s question about why God allows us to share in His works by comparing it to a parent inviting a young child’s “help” in baking cookies.

Kim, at Sharing Spirit, wishes us all a “tail-waggin’ day”, and reflects on how short life is after losing my stepfather this last week and in the course of our lives, the struggle on The Path Home. A touching post…

Ish from The Path submits an entry entitled Houdini And The Art Of Change; memories of Houdini, the hamster, spur Ish to trust God more fully…

Donna-Jean (Liberty and Lily) writes about her godly grandmother’s colorful and exemplary life in Still Teaching Me.

The Dugout - This is where the chief in-game strategizing takes place, of course; the astute manager senses that his pitcher is tiring, doesn’t wait too long to get the reliever up in the bullpen, and brings him into the game to put out the fire. He knows how to make the double-switch, position his fielders correctly, save his pinch-hitters for just the right place in the game, and motivate his reluctant superstar. The dugout is the place where all this happens—just like in life, for the Christ-follower, the church serves as the “dugout”, the place where we map strategy for cooperating with God in the building of His kingdom. Several of our posters tackled issues related to the dugout…er…church.

In a post entitled Church With No Steeple, but Lots of People, Quotidian Grace asks “How does a church with no cross and no steeple attract 30,000 people to worship services in the former NBA arena in Houston?” Good question! Undoubtedly, answers will be varied…

Over at Attention Span, Rev Ed asks us pastors a pertinent question: Why Do We Count? He explains that “we tend to judge a church by the numbers. Attendance and sometimes membership are supposed to tell us all we need to know about a church’s health. Or do they? If they don’t, then why do we bother to count heads on Sunday morning?”

Warren Kelly at View From the Pew, in An Unregenerate Denomination?, asks, “What does it mean when a church with a membership of 5,000 only has 2,000 in attendance on Sunday mornings, and less on Sunday and Wednesday evenings? It could mean that a BUNCH of people in that church don’t belong to the Church.” It could indeed, Warren; it could indeed.

Angry in T.O., at Angry in the Great White North (time for anger management classes?) submits a double-play for our reading pleasure, Parts One and Two of a twin killing examining how the Roman Catholic Church in Canada is disciplining two Catholic members of parliament for voting in favour of same-sex marriage (and note the Canadian spelling of “favor”!).

At Deo Omnis Gloria, Jay, a Southern Baptist-turned-Roman Catholic, writes Worshipping as a New Testament Church. He says, “This post examines how the Bible teaches us to worship and looks for details on structuring worship services. How did the early Christians worship? Find out here.”

SpunkyHomeschool gives us The Youth Group Question. “Youth group is getting a lot of attention in many churches these days. Good and bad. Spunky. a homeschool mom of 6, describes her family’s postion on the issue of youth group participation.”

Nationalism Trumps Catholicism: that’s the conclusion of Jonathan Pinto, a loyal Ales Rarus reader. Having been born and raised Catholic in India, a spiritual yet secular and pluralistic society, he is appalled at how often the Catholic Church in America tends to confound spirituality with nationalism.

In Death to my cynicism, oh Lord, Matthew Self, at Gaddabout, says, “People think when you become a journalist, you hand in your Bible, curse God, and join the campaign to defame the Church and all its people. I can assure you that’s not the case. What Christian journalists do acquire is much more evil: Cynicism.”

Rookies - Every spring, the buzz around baseball is, “which rookies are going to make an immediate impact?” Fred Lynn and Ichiro are the two rookies, in my lifetime, who’ve made the biggest impact upon their teams, each winning not only “Rookie of the Year”, but MVP as well. We have some first-time posters with us here at the Carnival this week, and without a doubt, these bloggers are in the bigs to stay for a long, long time!

This is the first post at Christian Carnival for Sisters’ Weblog (It Bloggles the Mind!). It’s called Doing Love, and in it, Sue is prompted to consider Jesus’ teaching of love, as she and her friend Katie study The Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight.

Bob from CrosSwords is a rookie this week; he shows promise in his first game in the bigs, with Blogging for X. Many bloggers tend to support specific candidates or political opinions. Bob tries to deal with the question of just who we are blogging for and why he approaches things in that way.

Another rookie, the Nailman, proves he can hit big-league pitching, ably answering the question, “Why ‘A Firm Nail’?”, at his blog—you guessed it—A Firm Nail! He discusses what this tells us about the Scriptures, and explains why he picked it as the name of his blog.

Clean-Up - The clean-up hitters bring the muscle to the plate, the RBI guys who can drive in runners. Albert Pujols does it as well as anyone in the majors today (although he usually bats third!). We have some clean-up hitters in their own right, bloggers who pack a real wallop as they stride to the plate to take on weighty matters, apologetics and current events included. If you want to go deep, read some of these posts!

At Another Man’s Meat, there is a weighty post called When Worldviews Collide, a brief look at Kansas and the Darwinism/Intelligent Debate going on here.

Annie Besant’s Unbelief is this week’s post from Viewpoint. Here’s the lead: “For the last two centuries a major objection to belief in God has been that there’s not enough evidence. In this post the merits of that objection are critiqued and found wanting.”

Crossroads brings us The Second Great Awakening: Milieux, with this description: Continuing the revival series, we now come to the Second Great Awakening. By the 1790’s the country was once again away from God. What was happening and how did this revival resolve it? Or did it?

My Big Problem With “Progressive” Christianity is the title of Chad’s post at PlaidBerry. If we are to talk of a difference in worldview between Christians and secularists, the abortion issue encapsulates it. But when followers of Christ begin debating the abortion issue, I do not get it… at all. Right on, Chad…remember, there is only ONE issue when it comes to abortion: “what is that ‘thing’ in the womb?”

An excellent post can be found at the Common Room, entitled Pro-Life, Continued, an ongoing conversation between TheHeadGirl and a pro-choice advocate.

Bill Wallo at Wallo World offers a thought-provoking piece, entitled Cherry Picking and the Religious Left. Bill asks, If faith ought to inform our politics, why do folks on the right and the left frequently look for Scripture to support what they already want to believe?

Northern Burbs Blog is seeking to start a discussion on gambling in an age where states are trying to raise revenue through lotteries and casinos. Let him know whatcha think at Wanna Bet?

all kinds of time wants to talk about the new virginity, offering a response to a recent article in Rolling Stone on the “new” practice of virginity among Christian youth.

News Flash! Hollywood Finds Money in Smut! But that’s not so much the point of this post at The Great Separation; rather, this fact “leaves me wondering if ‘Christians’ are buying into these movies because they can watch them in the privacy of their own homes.”

Umpires - On the baseball diamond, the ump’s ruling is final; there exists no further court of appeal; the ump calls ‘em as he sees ‘em, and if you don’t like it, argue all you want, but what the ump says, goes—and if you argue long enough, it’ll be you who go! For the Christian, the Word of God is our final “umpire”—with a couple of differences from umps on the diamond: one, the Bible never gets it wrong! Two, most of us don’t like the umps (”they cost us the game with that call!”), but as Christ-followers, we love (or should love!) His Word. These posts are reflections on the Word—our “umpire” for life.

The Marshian Chronicles this week poses the question: When following God’s commands seem to go against the grain of my nature - who do I choose to be true too? True to Self Or God?

Over at Christianity is Jewish, the post Abib 14 is a continuation of a Passover/Moses series exposing the depth of the faith in history.

dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos is dedicated to the writings of Saint Luke. The blogmeister there writes, “Beginning July 8 and continuing to July 12 I have discussed in 5 short comments the significance of the feeding of the 4000″; the post is Manna, 4000/5000 and Paul’s Collection.

Karen Marie (From the Anchor Hold) gives us a few words on how to ride it out when the world goes topsy-turvy, from experience and from Scripture [Sirach chapter 2] in In the time of ordeal, cling to what is certain.

The Opinionated Bastard talks about reading Genesis, in Reading the Bible. Hey, it is what it is!

Rey at the Bible Archive asks us to mull this one over: “Why was the Fall necessary to the glory of God if He was (and is) already perfect?” Read God’s Plan B? for yourself!

Adrian Warnock, the chap behind the Blogdom of God, completes his ESV interview and links to all the previous posts. It’s titled, ESV: A Bible Translation for Everyone?

Better Bibles Blog tries his hand at Scripture Poetry this week, and encourages others to try writing Scripture poetry as one way of having the Bible speak to us more deeply.

Sherry Early at Semicolon gives us the second in a series of posts on Psalm 119, this post examines how and why the psalmist tells us to cleanse our ways, in a post entitled Beth. My mother came from the Early clan; nice post, “CUZ”!

Random Responses posts the first in a multi-day series of posts on reflections upon the land of Israel - the Fifth Gospel, in In the Footsteps of Jesus #1.

FaithCommons offers The Perfect Law, stating, “There is a principle, or law, that is above all others and that supersedes them. It doesn’t repeal them, it explains them. Neither does it replace them but rather places them again into their proper context.” Would that we’d more frequently obey that Law…

Pastor Bill shares some thoughts from a funeral service he conducted and how that “time to die” can be a Blessed Departure.

“Beisbol been bera, bera good to me” - The words of the immortal (and fictional) Chico Escuela, forever etched into the minds of late ’70’s SNL fans, reminds us that baseball is indeed an international game. The Home Run Contest, held Monday evening, featured 8 players hailing from 8 different countries. The world meets on one stage in major league parks these days, and blogs on world affairs meet under this heading.

Doug McHone at Coffee Swirls tries to understand the motivation behind Islamic suicide bombers and offers a different strategy for preventing them in Inside the Mind of a Suicide Bomber.

Truegrit, “that other sort of blog”, reaches a conclusion based on blog responses to the day of the London attack, in Balance of Mind in an Evil Time.

Matt Jones, at the aptly-named Matt Jones Blog, posts Some Thoughts on London, offering, aptly, a few thoughts on the attacks in London. Sounds apt to me!

Beyond The Rim… posts on London, offering a prayer for Christians urging them not to fear in these turbulent times.

“If I am to believe the MSM, nearly half the electorate considers me a “fundamentalist,” morally equivalent to the radical Islamic fundamentalists….. I suppose they think that because, in this anything-goes age, I believe with all my heart and soul in an exclusive metanarrative, though a quite different one than the terrorists profess.” See I Miss That Friendly Muslim Voice at JD Wetterling’s Midweekly Reality Check.

Playing Hurt - It’s what the great ones find a way to do; Cal Ripken certainly never set his astonishing consecutive games record by sitting down when a hangnail festered. Remember: “There’s no crying in baseball!” These blog posts deal honestly with issues of pain in the Christian life—we bleed and hurt, and no amount of Positive Confession/Prosperity Gospel talk changes that. How does a Christian respond to pain?

Extreme poverty in Africa is “an injustice that challenges us as the church to respond in our personal lives, in our discipleship, in our church life and mission, and - in the pattern of Amos and others - in our prophetic role towards political leadership”. Keith, at Under the Acacias, is a missionary in Burkina Faso. In the post What does the Lord require of you…? he appeals for Biblical responses.

Lance, over at Ragged Edges, has been through the mill…he writes, “After getting fired from my job as a prosecutor, God has, over the past two weeks, provided encouragement and instruction through a myriad of things. Here is a sampling: Things That Have Helped.

Brutally Honest…is. Keying off The Anchoress’ moving post on her health problems, he deals frankly with his own problems in Hounded.

The Doctor Is In adds his thoughts on the Anchoress, her loss of hearing, and the the questions of “why?” when great loss occurs in life, in God of Loss and Grace.

John, over at Blogotional, asks How Does The Holy Spirit Deal With You?
Sometimes the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to create in us discontent, pain, and trial — not because those things are good, but because they start us on the journey towards good.

Utility Infielder - Overlooked? Little-used? Underappreciated? Perhaps…but no championship team makes it to the Series without a quality “utility infielder” who can do a lot of things, plug a lot of holes, and get the job done when a regular is injured or just needs a rest. Some of these players are great with the bat—making for excellent pinch-hitters; others are late-inning defensive replacements, brought in to help secure a lead with solid defense. Perhaps these players—like these blogs—don’t fit neatly into another category—but championships are won and lost with a good bench—and you’ll find some great posts in this lot—even if they don’t fit so neatly into another category!

Neil at Digitus Finger & Co. submits an All-Star lineup of his own posts, his “first blogging year in review” with his post A Year and Then Some – The Best of Me. “Why read it?”, Neil asks. “Why not?”, answers Senator John “Bluto” Blutarsky! Think back…Animal House? “Food fight!” “Double secret probation?” It’ll come to ya…

Mark Olson gives us a Book Review: Binding of the Blade Books 1 & 2 at his popular blog, Pseudopolymath. Of this post, Mark says, “Beyond the Summerland has been reviewed by other in the Christian blogging community. However, the 2nd book in the Binding of the Blade series is now out. I review them briefly.”

Cindy Swanson’s Notes in the Key of Life has posted “Faithful Women”: My interview with Noel Piper on the book of the same name, which profiled five remarkable Christian women.

Apprehension begins to tackle one of the greatest books I’ve ever read, C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity - Humans Believe In Right And Wrong, But Don’t Always Do Right. Doug writes, “Since Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis is a widely read book, and I haven’t read it yet, I thought I’d blog it as well as read it. This is a commentary on the first chapter.

Joy, at karagraphy, writes on Cheapening Jesus, which she calls a brief rant (dialogue included) against self-righteous self-declared Jesus Freaks who consider their spam-commenting tactics an honor to Him rather than ridicule.

Every Thought Captive follows a similar theme, giving some reflectionson anonymous flaming, in Flaming and Civility: Virtual vs. The Real World.

Brian at Reasons Why tackles Ezzo on the Shy Child, asking, “Ever thought being shy could be a sin? Gary Ezzo does. Come visit as I look at this unique teaching by one of the most controversial parenting authors today.”

Broken Masterpieces writes on End Times, the witness of an unbalanced approach to end-times prophecy and the overemphasis of the topic.

The War of the Worlds Is Real, says Jordan. “This post is my reflection, inspired by watching the new film War of the Worlds, on the spiritual war we as Christians are involved in. It is an unavoidable war with more serious consequences than mere physical death, but one we are destined to win, using the right weapons.”

The bottom of the ninth is a memory; this one’s in the books; Godbloggers win! Godbloggers win! We had ‘em all the way!

Last 3 posts by Byronita

• Free for Coming, Installment Three - August 19th, 2008
• YeeHAAAA! A Whole NEW Prophecy! - August 18th, 2008
• Free for Coming, Installment Two - August 18th, 2008