Christian Carnival CLXXXIII

Welcome to Christian Carnival CLXXXIII. We have 29 very interesting posts today, and so without further ado......here they are..........

Ishtar at Ishtar News has Contemplations about her life. She sees the stress and worry, but she also sees the possibilities of each new day.

Balanced Life Center answers questions that I think are very important in today’s church. Should spiritual leaders be perfect? What happens if they “fall?” Nneka answers these in this post, Spiritual Leaders and Teachers

Terry at Christianity With a Purpose tells us about his story of going from financial problems to financial freedom. In his post he tells about his experience with the Word of Faith teaching in From Debt to Financial Freedom

Alex at Jordan’s View is another one who takes up the Word of Faith teaching. In the first part of his post, entitled, Compassion for Tammy Faye and other Health-Wealth Disciples , he discusses what he considers is faulty teaching of healing in the atonement. In the second part, Alex discusses the prosperity teaching.

My contribution this week is also about the Word of Faith teaching, but in a little different vein and not all negative. My blog, Crossroads presents what I believe must be A NEW Type of Faith Teacher. This teacher will present the best of the Word of Faith teaching (yes, there are actually some gems among the trash), but live a moderate lifestyle.

At the North Star Mental Fitness Blog Dr. Hal talks about procrastination and what you can do about it. You can find it in his post, Do You Have an Energy Leak in Your Soul?

This post is one that I agree with so much. It had 14 comments as of last Friday when I read it. Putting our energies and money into political movements does not bring about change as I think we are beginning to see now. Dana asks the very important question, could we use that energy and money to improve our communities and share the gospel in her post, Is our goal really to "bankrupt the American educational establishment?" at her blog, Principled Discovery.

Lille at Devotionals from Father Chip presents how God transformed the apostle James into the Son of Thunder and we too can be transformed in the post, Liturgy Lesson for St. James the Apostle: Son of Thunder.

Rodney at The Journey wrote the post, Daring to Say the F Word
No, it’s not that F word. To find out what it is, you’ve gotta read this post. It’s really good.

Richard at /dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos theophilos asks, "Why does God send famine?" This is one of the most interesting and I think the best answer I’ve read about Bible famines. The post is entitled, Great Famine.

The blog, A Modest Proposal gives us an interesting way to think about some of the claims of science vs. Christianity in Bounded Irrationality.

Leticia at Causa Nostrae Laetitiae tells us in her post, Confessions of a Lifetime Pro-Lifer how she became a pro-life activist beginning in junior high school. Since then she has been involved in many aspects of the movement.

Cade at Write To Right Your Business Opportunity writes that when your business interferes with sending time with your spouse and children, it might be time to rethink what is truly important in her post, Separating Your Business Opportunity And Your Family .

At Success-is-in-you.com Gustav does an interesting expose of a passage in 2nd Peter in his post, Important Biblical Messages for Success in Life .

How do you pray without it becoming a daily ritualistic exercise? Thom has some ideas in
Prayer and the Unknown at his blog,
Everyday Liturgy.

John at Brain Cramps For God discusses our consciences in his post,
Conscience, the Furies and Proverbs 29:1

How do we find contentment in life? John at Light Along the Journey reviews a part of a John Piper’s book, Future Grace which helps us to answer that question in his post entitled,
Coveting the World vs. Finding Contentment in Christ

Paul at Paul Kurtz - Opinions talks about Facing the Giant Controversy
I thought this was a very interesting post as Paul is a Christian movie critic and it was interesting to see his perspective on movies and the Christians who go see them.

Several Christians have written articles and posts lately claiming that the Harry Potter series actually embodies Christian values. Sue at Abstractons agrees with this and goes into quite a lot of detail explaining why she thinks of Rowling’s Potter books as Christian allegory in her post,
Harry Potter as a Christian Allegory

Should we have a different type of democracy? Convened-sample suffrage was a new term to me when I read Gavin’s blog, /etc/cron.whenever. He talks about convened-sample vs. universal suffrage in his post entitled, Democracy vs. Universal Suffrage.

Chris at Homeward Bound talks about what C.S. Lewis thought about the problem of pain and what we can learn from pain in his post, Review: The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis .

Bruce at it seems to me takes up the theme that spiritual warfare doesn’t mean take a sword to our enemies. To read what he thinks this does mean, read his post entitled, On Spiritual Warfare.

Tracee at So Sioux Me discusses the poor state of healthcare in America today and asks how the Christian community can keep supporting a private insurance-only healthcare plan for the country, in her post, What Would Jesus Do?.

Tupeko at Tupelo Kenyon.com urges us to learn how to prioritize our time in her post, Take Time For You.

Tom at Thinking Christian takes up a subject that we are hearing more about nowadays in the Christian community – the place of Christian art in the church and also in the marketplace. He introduces us to some movements in this regard in his post, Where Have All the Artists Gone? (Part 2) .

Another hot topic today in the church is the New Perspective on Paul (NPP). Matthew at Mere Orthodoxy gives us his take on this topic and especially Romans 4. So does Matthew agree with NPP? Well…yes….kind of. You’ll have to find out what he is saying in his post (the last in a series), The Anthropology of Romans Four: Conclusion and Footnotes .

To answer a challenge naming a denomination you most admire, the blog, Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength lists 7 reasons they admire the Eastern Orthodox churches in the post, Almost Persuaded.

Brian at Realmealministries.org has written a really unique post encouraging those in missional work to read books, magazines and several other things. You can see his list in the post, Essential Traits for Missional Leaders: Lifelong Learning .

Ali at Kiwi and an Emu has a well-written post on the mindset of more social liberal folks living in an idealized world where we can sit down with certain other folks - in her post it's muslim radicals - and simply talk things out. As Ali points out in her post, Social Liberals: Do they know what they are doing?, this is happening all over the world, not just in America.