For the second time in my short life as a blogger, I've been meme-tagged by an evil blogging compatriot hoping to provoke me into playing a silly blog-tagging game, generating more content, and generally surrendering to mass hysteria.

Okay. I'm in! But only because I'm a sucker for attention. And because, like the "One Book Meme," this question interests me, and I like it.

By the way, I was tagged by Carl Thomas over at the Revival Blog who, believe it or not, actually got a touch snarky with me in his post. This is a bit like playing touch football, only instead of being touched, or tagged, or merely pushed, you get a wedgie:

Rich — If he completes it, (remember that "imminent" post on Ted Haggard

Social justice gets a bad rap among many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, but Tony Campolo sets us straight. Check out this video.

I've often heard it said within Pentecostal circles that the Holy Spirit gets little recognition — even within our own Pentecostal and Charismatic circles. Of course, there's some theological justification for this: According to Jesus' promise in John 14:26, one of the Holy Spirit's primary roles in the believer's life is to direct our attention to Jesus:

"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

As I was checking out a few of my unread feed subscriptions tonight, I came across a mention of the Google Trends service. This tool has been in service for quite some time, but since I was

These are a few of the things I've recently found of interest, but don't have the time to properly blog on. I don't necessarily like or agree with the links here, I just think they're interesting. And just in case you do, too, enjoy.

(You can view past Del.icio.us links here or subscribe to my Del.icio.us feed here. )

Update (07/14/2007): "Carlton Pearson: The closest to God you’ll probably ever get"

On Heresy

What is heresy? The textbook definition is simply:

• An opinion or a doctrine at variance with established religious beliefs … or
• A controversial or unorthodox opinion or doctrine.

And right alongside that definition — at least on this weblog, anyhow — you can find a picture of Bishop Carlton D. Pearson who wants to "rewrite the theology of the charismatic world" by preaching a "Gospel of Inclusion" asserting that Christ's death conclusively reconciled all mankind to God — whether we realize it or not — and that the only separation between man and God's grace is subjective, illusionary, and exists only in unenlightened minds (Carlton Pearson, "Jesus Savior of the World/Gospel of Inclusion — Position Paper," Higher Dimension website, viewed March 5, 2006).

More on that later, but first.…

Supposed founder of the church at Edessa. Supposedly one of the original seventy disciples of Jesus.

[tags]Addai, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus[/tags]

A group commonly called Cathari, meaning "pure ones." Since they were especially influential in and about the town of Albi in southern France some people called them Albigenses. Although most of what we know about the Albigenses comes from their enemies, it is likely that they filtered into Europe from Bulgaria. Like the gnostics in the early church, the Cathari held that the universe is the scene of an eternal conflict between two powers, the one good, the other evil. Matter, including the human body, is the work of this evil power, the god of the Old Testament. He had imprisoned the human soul in its earthly body. To escape from the power of the flesh the true Cathar was supposed to avoid marriage, sexual intercourse, eating of meat, and material possessions. Here was a radical poverty, but not one based on the example of Jesus so much as on

(1560-1609)

A Dutch professor who tried to modify the Calvinism of his time. In 1610 his disciples produced their manifesto, the Remonstrance, affirming that election to salvation rests on faith forseen; that Christ died for all, although only believers benefit; that grace is not irresistible; and that perseverance depends on one's own action over and above God's help. Dutch Arminianism was rationalistic in spirit, and subsequently drifted into querying Jesus' full deity. Some High church Anglicans came independently to an essentially Arminian view of grace, not from rationalism, but from deference to the Greek Fathers.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jacob-Arminius, Jesus[/tags]

On 21 January 1525, at a secret meeting at the house of Felix Manz, Reformation leaders met to counter attempts to dictate church policy by the City Council of Zurich. There George Blaurock, a former priest, requested Conrad Grebel to baptize him in the apostolic fashion — upon confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ — instead of in the Catholic fashion of only one baptism in infancy. Grebel baptized him and Blaurock proceeded to baptize the others present, thus was born the Anabaptist movement.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Conrad-Grebel, Felix-Manz, George-Blaurock, history, Jesus, Reformation[/tags]

(1862-1929)

A Canadian Anglican who served as a missionary to the Philippine Islands. He was conscious of the doctrinal differences that separated the churches. He saw Anglicanism as the bridge that might span these differences. On his urging the Edinburgh conference appointed a committee to invite "all churches which accept Jesus Christ as God and Savior to join in conferences following the general method of the World's Missionary Conference, for the consideration of all questions pertaining to Faith and Order of the Church of Christ." Brent believed that cooperation among churches was possible only on the basis of agreement on essentials of the faith. Disunity, he said, is fundamentally creedal.

[tags]BlogRodent, Charles-Brent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus[/tags]

In 1521 Martin Luther stood before the Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms. In that same year Ignatius Loyala entered convalescence from an injury and soon had a spiritual conversion of sorts. Loyola subsequently formed the Society of Jesus, the greatest single force in Catholicism's campaign to recapture the spiritual domains seized by Protestantism.

While the Catholic Church did not immediately respond to the Protestant challenge, when it finally did it called upon its spiritual warriors, the Jesuits. It convened a new, militant council; and it reformed the machinery of the papal office. Faced by the rebellion of almost half of Europe, Catholicism rolled back the tide of Protestantism until by the end of the sixteenth century Protestantism was limited roughly to the northern third of Europe, as it is today.

Some historians have interpreted the Catholic Reformation as a counterattack against Protestantism; others have described

A Gnostic teacher (about A.D. 140) who believed that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. The God of the Old Testament, he said, was unknowable, the Christian God had been revealed. The Old Testament God was sheer justice; whereas the God of the New Covenant was loving and gracious. This man greatly influenced Marcion.

[tags]BlogRodent, Cerdo, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus, Marcion[/tags]

An event which sent most of Jesus' followers, including his apostles into hiding, confused and fearful. Considered a barbarous death, reserved for agitators, pirates and slaves. Jewish law cursed everyone who hangs on a tree. The punishment involves a whipping, then carrying the heavy cross-beam to the place of death. A notice would be pinned to the crucifix indicating the culprit's crime. It is a slow and painful death, often taking days to kill its victim. When the crucified dies, it is usually from asphyxiation, or dehydration.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Crucifixion, history, Jesus[/tags]

Driven by religious fervor, love of adventure and dreams of personal profit, crusaders from western Europe for 200 years attempted to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. All the great and colorful figures of this era were caught up in the consuming cause, from Peter the Hermit, who inflamed the First Crusade, to the saintly Louis IX, King of France, who inspired the Sixth and Seventh.

For centuries peaceful pilgrims had been traveling from Europe to worship at the birthplace of Christ. The rise and spread of Islam in the Near East during the seventh century did not interrupt this traffic. By the tenth century bishops were organizing mass pilgrimages to the Holy Land. During the eleventh century, however, Christian pilgrims encountered persecution, and when the Seljuk Turks, new and fanatical converts to Islam, came sweeping and plundering into the Near East, the situation became especially tense. The

When Voltaire was an influential propagandist for Deism and had many disciples, his only serious rival was a set of books — the famous French Encyclopedia edited by Denis Diderot (1713-1784) The seventeen volumes of the Encyclopedia constituted the chief monument of the philosophies. They heralded the supremacy of the new science, championed tolerance, denounced superstition, and expounded the merits of deism. Diderot's article on "Christianity" professed high regard for the religion of Jesus, but its effect was to stir the reader to a profound contempt for Christianity's social failures. The preliminary weapon aimed at the church was "truth." "We think that the greatest service to be done to men," said Diderot, "is to teach them to use their reason, only to hold for truth what they have verified and proved."

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Deism, Denis-Diderot, history, Jesus, Voltaire[/tags]

On 4 July 1776, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were appointed as a committee to prepare a Seal of the United States of America. Benjamin Franklin exemplified many virtues Americans have come to admire. People found him practical, earthy, affable, witty and, above all, tolerant. A few weeks before he died Ben responded to an inquiry by President Ezra Stiles of Yale concerning his religious faith. Said Franklin: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, … I have … some doubts as to his Divinity, tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence … of making his doctrines more respected and better observed."

[tags]Benjamin-Franklin, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus,

Contemporary and friend of missionary William Carey. Fuller resisted the prevailing Calvinistic idea among Baptists that preaching should avoid application to the hearers as well as appeals to conversion, lest the preacher interfere somehow in God's election of his chosen people. By encouraging each other Carey and Fuller succeeded in breaking free from the restrictive theology of their time. They went back to the New Testament, especially to Jesus' injunction to preach the gospel to all the world.

[tags]Andrew-Fuller, Baptists, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus, William-Carey[/tags]

In 1920, Curtis Lee Laws, Baptist editor of the Watchman-Examiner, called "fundamentalists" within the Northern Baptist Convention to a conference in Buffalo, New York. This group of conservatives, popularly called "The Fundamentalist Fellowship" were moderate conservatives. They believed that the modernists were surrendering the "fundamentals" of the gospel: the sinful nature of man, his inability to be saved apart from God's grace, the centrality of Jesus' death for the regeneration of the individual and the renewal of society, and the authoritative revelation of the Bible. This group was the first to apply the name "fundamentalist" to itself.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Curtis-Lee-Laws, Fundamentalist, Fundamentalist-Fellowship, history, Jesus[/tags]

(1836-1918)

The father of the New Theology movement. He published the first of his many books on the Social Gospel in 1876. A transplanted New Englander, he spent his most influential years at the First Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio. In the Ohio capital he encountered the labor struggle first hand.

In his congregation were both employers and employees, so during times of industrial strife Gladden witnessed with alarm "the widening of the breach between these classes." In a number of evening addresses he focused on the labor problem and expressed his conviction that the teachings of Jesus contained the principles for the right ordering of society.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus, Social-Gospel, Washington-Gladden[/tags]

At the house of Felix Manz in Zurich on 21 January 1525, Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz met with fellows of like faith despite opposition from the town council. They had been commanded to stop holding Bible classes and had been warned by the council that all babies were to be baptized within eight days of birth or face banishment from the territory.

When George Blaurock, a former priest, stepped over to Conrad Grebel and asked him for baptism in the apostolic fashion — upon confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ, Grebel baptized him on the spot and Blaurock proceeded to baptize the others. Thus, Anabaptism was born. Today the direct descendants of the Anabaptists are the Mennonites and the Hutterites.

Persecution forced the Anabaptists north. Many of them found refuge on the lands of some exceptionally tolerant princes in Moravia. There they founded a long-lasting form of

Not one of the Twelve. A Jew, one of the first company of believers. Led the Jerusalem church. Murdered in A.D. 62 by a Jewish high priest. Was revered by his followers. May have authored the epistle bearing his name.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, James-the-brother-of-Jesus, Jesus[/tags]

A Jew, one of the first martyrs. Of the first company of believers. Judas, his son. He is the son of Zebedee. Was murdered by Herod Agrippa in A.D. 41. One of Jesus' closest followers.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, James, Jesus, martyr[/tags]

The Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius of Loyola, a young Spanish nobleman, the first Superior General of the Jesuits. Was approved by Pope Paul III in A.D. 1540 as a new religious order. Jesuits attempted to live energetically in the world without being of it. The Society of Jesus became the greatest single force in Catholicism's militant campaign to recapture the spiritual domains seized by Protestantism. Became the instrument of the Catholic Church in her "Reformation", or "Counter-Reformation" in the early 1500's. They were to be chivalrous soldiers of Jesus, their mission to convert the heathen and reconvert Protestant Europe. Eventually they became lenient in their priestly roles and made many allowances for sinful human nature, so called "cheap grace."

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Ignatius, Jesuits, Jesus, Pope-Paul-III, Protestantism, Reformation[/tags]

Crucified under placard reading INRI: Iesus Naxarenus Rex Iudaeorum. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Planned for a company of followers to carry on his work. Worked with a faithful band of disciples for two years, taught them about life in the kingdom of God. Introduced them to a new covenant that bound them together in forgiveness and love. Found it necessary to call for the loyalty of his followers without confusing the purpose of his mission with the objectives of the other parties among the Jews (Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes). Began his ministry by joining a new movement in the Judean wilderness led by a prophet, John the Baptist. Began his mission in Galilee, traveled from village to village throughout Galilee preaching in Synagogues and on the Sabbath. Main theme of his teaching was the "Kingdom of God". His popularity aroused much controversy. The Pharisee's challenges gave him

A prophet, leader of a movement in the Judean wilderness when Christ inaugurated his ministry. Wearing a garment of camel's hair, his eyes ablaze, he stood on the riverbank and warned all who passed to repent of their sins and prepare for the coming day of judgment by receiving baptism in the Jordan river. He baptized Jesus when Christ began his last 3 years of ministry.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus, John-the-Baptist[/tags]