Posted by Anthony on February 24, 2009
Thomas Powell’s recent article at Townhall called “A Fatal Trajectory” was featured on Rush Limbaugh today. When I got home I found some friends talking about it, too. I thought Powell’s piece hit the nail on the proverbial head.
Here is a quote I want to comment briefly on:
Ultimately, it all comes down to who is willing to die and who is not.
How did we get to this point? It was no single thing.
The dumbing down of our education, the undermining of moral values with the fad of “non-judgmental” affectations, the denigration of our nation through poisonous propaganda from the movies to the universities. The list goes on and on.
The trajectory of our course leads to a fate that would fully justify despair.
These are themes that I have been covering in my apologetics ministry. To counter the ignorance regarding Christianity my ministry launched an online apologetics academy. ‘Non-judgmental’ affectations are covered every week on this blog. As for the ‘poisonous propaganda’ my ministry’s Christian writing contest is geared specifically to spur on Christian authors so that they can help turn the tide from the midst of the very belly of the beast. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on October 20, 2008
Today is the official release day of Birth Pangs: Spero in hard cover! It is available through Amazon.com or through my book’s website at www.birthpangs.com.
Jean Heimann, who also reviewed Birth Pangs: Fidelis, was kind enough to write a review of Spero as well. Below are the opening paragraphs of the review followed by a link to the full review. She provides a link back to birthpangs.com at the end of her review.
Jean Heimann’s Full Review
Spero, the second book in the Birthpang series continues the adventure of the futuristic fantasy tale, which takes places in the United States in the not too distant future. Spero focuses primarily on one of the main characters in the novel, King, who, as a young boy, is rescued from the ruins of a nuclear explosion by the strong and courageous Tasha, who is fleeing an epidemic that has gripped the nation and wiped out large portions of the population. …
King and Tasha are eventually taken in by the Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma where they are welcomed and accepted as they earn the respect of their new family. Here King develops into a strong, courageous, and honorable young man, who is on a quest to discover his identity and his purpose in life in this new world. … In addition, he has been blessed with the gift of prophecy to guide him — to obtain insight and wisdom on his life journey and to assist others in decision-making in difficult situations; however, this gift in itself becomes a major challenge for him.
Similar in nature to the writings of C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkein, Spero bears a Christian theme, includes Scripture passages, and is rich in Christian symbolism. The main theme in Spero, (which is Latin for “hope”) is hope vs. despair … In Spero, the things of this world which people often look to for hope – their government, their schools, and even their churches – are destroyed.
… Read the rest of the review
Posted by Anthony on October 19, 2008
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
CS Lewis has a fabulous essay entitled ‘The Seeing Eye.’ In this essay he recounts a news article asserting that Russian astronauts had ventured into space… and didn’t find God. Lewis counters the immature understanding of ‘God’ that leads one to expect to ‘find’ God in space in the first place but then makes an interesting set of points. He says that anyone can ’see God’ in any place, but it depends on one’s frame of mind and general attitude. A Christian will see God everywhere: a sunset, a strand of DNA, a child’s smile. An atheist will see God nowhere.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was able to see God in a concentration camp. Elie Wiesel could not and did not and henceforth never did again. Dietrich Bonhoeffer died in that concentration camp, executed on a direct order from Hitler shortly before the concentration camp was liberated. Elie Wiesel survived the concentration camp, but never forgave himself for doing so.
What is the difference between the two men?
Or, one might consider an example like Richard Wurmbrand, who wrote the little book “Tortured for Christ.” He was imprisoned in the Romanian Russian prisons under the Communists. Communism perceived Christianity to be a threat and attempted to torture people out of their faith. Eventually Wurmbrand escaped- his faith intact- and eventually testified before US Congress, stripping to the waist to show what had been done to him. (Mind you, at that time a lot of people in America didn’t think the Communists actually did such things)
Wurmbrand and Bonhoeffer could see, and did see, God in all places at all times.
This, really, is the essence of hope. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on June 30, 2008
A review of Nancy Douglas’s Freedom: Healing for Parents of Disabled Children (Buy from Amazon)
Book Description
In the pages of Freedom, Nancy Douglas candidly shares the pain, grief, and trials of having a disabled child. From the initial storm of discovering her daughter was Autistic, deaf, and Failure to Thrive, to the agony of knowing she would never receive physically healing, her compelling and honest account of life with a special needs child will transform the heart of all who read it. Walk with Nancy through the pages of her journey and discover for yourself the true and lasting freedom God has waiting for you!
Book Details
- Paperback: 228 pages
- Publisher: Nancy Douglas (February 18, 2008)
- ISBN-10: 0615188222
- ISBN-13: 978-0615188225
- Webpage: www.oliveleafministries.com
Nancy Douglas was looking forward to the birth of her daughter. It didn’t take long to realize that something was horribly wrong. After the dust had settled, she found that she was bound up in a conflicting mess of uncertainty, fear, guilt, and grief. Her daughter could not be healed: Nancy Douglas
would not be healed. Yet twenty years later she has emerged from the worst and is now in a position to share her experiences so that others might find healing- and freedom- sooner.
As the parent of a disabled child myself, I could resonate with much of what Mrs. Douglas wrote about. There were somethings about her experiences that were different for my wife and I but there were others that were very similar. I believe that this book will be well suited for the Christian parents of a disabled child where the parents struggle to cope even years later. This book is proof positive that skeptics and atheists are not the first or only ones to struggle with the problem of pain and suffering. Quite possibly, even those who are not believers but are the parents of disabled children will be able to relate to her candid discussion about her long time struggle with God… and see that God is waiting to help them, too.
The strongest chapter, in my opinion, is chapter three, which is titled “Good Grief.” She explains that someone doesn’t have to die in order for another to experience grief. This is absolutely true. I know that my wife and I endured a long period of what can only be appropriately described as grief, though what had died was not the child, but the whole host of expectations that were dashed when we learned our child would be disabled. While we have overcome most of the outright grief, there are still shooting pains when we realize that our child will never dance, play soccer, or climb a tree. Or at least, if these things happen, they will happen in a radically transformed way. However, as Mrs. Douglas points out, there is a ‘good’ grief which makes you stronger and more resilient, and what makes it ‘good’ is not the degree of the event but rather the attitude one adopts in and through it.
Read the rest of the entry… »
