2 New Blogs
You should definitely check out two new bloggers who would be fun to read. They may be medical students, but contrary to the stereotype they’re actually quite interesting.
Also, both Northerners, which causes amusement for me when they read the Bible. They love Jesus and as you can see love swimming…
Read MoreA word on the awards
It’s been 10 days since the prestigious Christian Web & New Media Awards (see the winners here) – the ceremony was held at the beautiful church in the city of London, St. Stephen’s Walbrook, put on by Premier Christian Radio, the awards were introduced by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, and hosted by the ever lovely Maria Toth.
The good, and for me surprising news was that I won the award for best young blog, also my good friend Xander Coomber came runner up in the newcomer award. In other news I met the Church Mouse, less hairy than expected, also saw Adrian Warnock, surely next year due a ‘life-time achievement’ award.
Now… a little bit of contraversy… why not eh…? I was presented my award this year by a Bishop from Coptic Orthodox Church – what do you do with that? I just shook his hand, seemed appropriate… seemed like a nice guy.
Well… I understand that Premier needs to cover a wide range of Christian traditions, but looking at the beliefs of the Coptic Orthodox church I fear this may be a step too far as some of their beliefs seem profoundly un-christian… see what you think about these:
- We believe in the intercession of the Virgin St. Mary, the Angels, and the Saints.
- That Tradition is a source of our teaching.
- We believe that in the Eucharist we receive the Holy Body and the Holy Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Baptismal Regeneration
Well… there you go… good awards, I enjoyed the food… the mix of Christians there was particularly eclectic… and as ever a little bit of controversy from me… why not… it’s not about winning awards, it’s about being honest… and a little bit inappropriate sometimes 
Christian Blog Award Finalists
Hoorah! On Friday I shall be going to London to @ChristianAwards – the Christian Blog Awards to defend my dubious title of “Young Christian Blogger of the Year”. I’m also a finalist in the Best Small Church website category, representing St. Mary’s Hailsham (my dad’s church).
There’s a full list of finalists on The Church Mouse Blog… my good friend Xander Coomber will be there, as will the likes of Adrian Warnock, Marcus Honeysett and representatives from some large churches and Christian organisations.
On the subject of Christian blogs, there’s an interesting list of the top 100 church blogs that’s been compiled at ChurchRelevance.com – unsurprisingly my blog doesn’t appear on the list… DesiringGod is top!
Read MoreChristopher Hitchens – How Relativism poisons everything
Myself and my good friend ‘Pove’ have been engaging a little bit with Christopher Hitchens recently, looking at his debates on Youtube and checking out his book – “God is not great – how religion poisons everything”.
When Hitchens debates/writes he’s really annoying…
- Every sentence includes a word that no one else understands – he lords his intellect over people
- On intellect, he is an intellectual snob, assuming that anyone who lived more than 100 years ago is stupid (oh except Darwin)
- Every argument is actually at least 3 different arguments all splurged together
- He doesn’t honestly engage with Christian beliefs and evidence – rather he just picks on fundamentalists, and makes straw men
- Oh… and he never answers questions… just transfers a different question back
One of my favourite debates is with Doug Wilson, he gets Hitchens on the back foot and exposes some bad arguments and holes in his worldview. The best bit is when they talk about the Amalekites
DW: ”Neither one of us has a problem with killing Amalekites. I don’t have a problem killing the Amalekites because God told them to do it. You don’t have a problem because ‘the universe’ just doesn’t care what happens to Amalekites.”
CH: “No that’s not true, what if I was an Amalekite?
DW: “You’re not ‘the unviverse’”
Check out this bit from about 6:30 mins into the video. Doug gets him!
Read MoreChristian Web Awards
The Christian Web awards have a bit of a new look for 2009… a nice new yellow website, and also a slight change of focus, now it’s called “The Original Christian Web and New Media Awards”… does the inclusion of ‘original’ mean someone else is trying to rip it off and do their own awards thing…?
Anyway the categories are:
- Best Christian Blog
- Best Leadership Blog
- Best Christian Blog (under 25)
- Best Newcomer Blog
- Best Small Church Website
- Best Large Church Website
- Best Christian Organisation Website
- Best Christian Music Website
- People’s Choice Award
- Best use of New Media for a Christian Project
- Best use of New Media for a Christian Campaign
- Best use of Rich Media for Christians
You can enter now (entries close 24th August)… I will certainly enter the blog again – gotta try and retain the title… I think I will also enter the Bible by the Beach site, and might try and get a new church website ready soon…
Follow them on Twitter…
Read MoreScrivener’s Gems
The first time I met Glen Scrivener he encouraged me with the gospel. He still does it, though I haven’t seen him in person for a while…
I remember speaking with a Christian man about his extra-marital affair from years earlier. As he spoke about the pain of those memories I said to him “You realise that in the midst of the very worst of that, Jesus was rejoicing over you as a Bridegroom rejoices over His bride.” He paused for a long time and said “That makes it a hundred times worse!” I said “Yes it does. A thousand times worse.” We think that we manage to sin away in a corner somewhere. No, no, no. Just read 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 to see that we are very much united to Christ in our sin!
We stink of pig in the Father’s arms. That’s a thousand times worse than stinking in the sty. But it’s a million times better too.
The above from a post on the Prodigal Son, and the follow up post – Sinning really isn’t the worst thing
If you’ve never read is blog, you should.
If you live near Eastbourne, go and meet the man.
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