Joy Has Dawned – The Getty’s have a new Christmas album out and they are giving away one of the tracks as a free download. The song is a nice, Irish smash-up of “Joy Has Dawned” and “Angels We Have Heard on High.” The whole album is well worth the purchase.
Celebrity Pastors – I appreciated reading of some of the ways that James MacDonald deals with the celebrityism that follows him. Let me attest that it’s much easier in the abstract than in the moment to know what you’d do when someone comes up to you at church and asks to have their picture taken with you (or when someone says, “Will you sign my Bible?”). I appreciate that he has thought these things through and that he tries to react well.
When Fighting Temptation – Dane Ortlund quotes C.S. Lewis on fighting temptation.
Crybabies – This is an interesting take on all of the “occupy” protests going on these days. “North America and Europe, geographic epicentres of the Occupy Wall Street movement, are the fattest of fat cats, globally speaking. For any North American, least of all a Canadian, to claim economic kinship with the globally disadvantaged is silly. Mention that to an Indian. Mention it to a Chinese. Cry me a river, will be the likely response. Followed by a wry chuckle, or perhaps an expletive.”
Succession Law – Also from the National Post, an article on the English monarchy and its succession laws. It seems increasingly likely that the Reformation-era law forbidding a monarch from marrying a Roman Catholic will soon be abolished.
Ulrich Zwingli – Speaking of the Reformation, Steven Lawson is continuing his series of blog posts looking at the Reformers with today’s entry on Ulrich Zwingli.
I fear that what will surprise us most, when we see our Lord, will be the extent of our own ingratitude.
—E.B. Pusey
