Weekend A La Carte (December 15)

There are a few Kindle deals you may like to take a peek at today. Also, Amazon has select family board games on sale today.

(Yesterday on the blog: Kirk Cameron Wants You To Connect)

Hard times at Harvest

WORLD magazine has a long report on the hard times at Harvest Bible Chapel. “Former elders, pastors, and staffers from Chicago’s Harvest Bible Chapel accuse the church of financial mismanagement and a culture of deception and intimidation.” Christianity Today picked up the story as well.

The Death of Clear Thinking

Carl Trueman comments on a concerning article in the Times. “The entire article is of the quintessence of the age, instructive not so much for its positive contribution to the transgender case but for the insights it gives to our cultural moment. For such tendentious and flawed argumentation to be considered compelling, it needs to support a cause where the conclusions already enjoy such cachet that no significant exertion of intellectual effort is really needed to justify them in the public square.”

Misguided Proposal From Christian Leaders and LGBT Activists Is Anything but ‘Fairness for All’

In a somewhat similar vein, Ryan T. Anderson writes about “a proposal among some Christian leaders to strike a compromise with some LGBT activists to balance ‘LGBT rights’ with religious liberty. The proposal would elevate ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’ (SOGI) to protected classes in federal law in exchange for certain exemptions for religious colleges and institutions. They call this approach ‘Fairness for All’.”

Inside the Killer Whale Matriarchy (Video)

This little video tells how killer whales maintain an important matriarchy.

Child Marriage: Cultural Norm or Distortion of God’s Purposes?

I’m thoroughly enjoying TGC Africa where its writers are explaining and analyzing some of the issues that pertain to their part of the world. In this case, it’s the practice of child marriage.

Amazing iPhone Review (Video)

This is a very different and rather humorous (but also insightful) review of the iPhone.

Not Everything Needs a Gospel Talk

I co-sign this: “I am a firm believer that, at some point, you actually have to share the gospel and that if all you’re doing is mercy ministry, or acts of service without words, you are not doing gospel ministry. But that doesn’t mean those sorts of things have absolutely no evangelistic value whatsoever.”