Combing the Net – 6/15/2012

Jay and Katrina Didn’t Waste Their Lives — The story of a young missionary couple who died on the mission field in Zambia two weeks ago. Jay Erickson’s final blog post (“Pondering Death”) is even more poignant in light of his recent death. In it, he wrote of his contemplation of death, and of his struggle to overcome his fears which hindered him from speaking.

Black and White and Red All Over: Why Racial Justice is a Gospel Issue — Russell Moore on the difficult racial history of the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination that originally came into existence before the Civil War as the result of a dispute with northern Baptists over slavery, and which was populated largely by segregationists as recently as a generation ago. How far we’ve come in such a short time, as the SBC will elect its first black president next week!

Let Wonder Lead You to Worship (Don’t Let the Devil Dumb You) — A great article that reminded me a lot of N.D. Wilson’s book Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl (my review).

The devil does not want you to wonder. Wonder is deadly to the domain of darkness because of its dangerous tendency to lead to worship.

So the devil is going to do his level best to keep you stupid — stupid in the sense of being sense-less. If he can’t damn you, he will try to dumb you. You must resist him.

How to Respond to the Video Game Crisis — There’s been a lot of talk lately about the influence of video games on young men (see this recent post), and this article is a very helpful addition to the discussion. Rich Clark exhorts Christians to think better about video games. He sees them as a new art form which, like others, can be used thoughtfully and responsibly for the benefit of society, but can also be a destructive influence.

Video games are a comparatively new medium, and as such they are the object of much skepticism and intrigue. Those who do not play games often view the medium as a waste of time at best and a corrupting influence at worst. Meanwhile, video game proponents—permanently on the defensive—make excuses for bad art and actual corrupting influences. We Christians must be truthful about these things, but neither side right now is telling the whole story.

Review/Summary of “Captivated: The Movie” — This documentary about “finding freedom in a media captive culture” looks very interesting. You can learn more about the movie at the film’s website. Here is the trailer:

Why Guys Love Porn and Video Games

A book that released this week by Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan (The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It) investigates, among other things, the effects of video games and online pornography on guys. You can read a synopsis of their discoveries in an article the two psychologists wrote for CNN entitled “The Demise of Guys: How Video Games and Porn Are Ruining a Generation”. I also recommend taking five minutes to watch this speech on the subject by Dr. Zimbardo, which I first saw when it was posted on the always fascinating TED Talks webpage last fall:

As a guy who probably wasted months of his life on video games — though probably not the 10,000 hours (over a year… yipes!) he says is “average” — I can vouch firsthand for the allure of the “new”.  But while I think the statistical analysis of this study & book are likely quite accurate, they miss out on the deeper root of what drives men to these pursuits.

This is why I so appreciate Russell Moore’s article, “Fake Love, Fake War:  Why So Many Men Are Addicted to Internet Porn and Video Games”. He reminds us that these are spiritual battles for our affections.

Pornography promises orgasm without intimacy. Video warfare promises adrenaline without danger. The arousal that makes these so attractive is ultimately spiritual to the core.

Satan isn’t a creator but a plagiarist. His power is parasitic, latching on to good impulses and directing them toward his own purpose. God intends a man to feel the wildness of sexuality in the self-giving union with his wife. And a man is meant to, when necessary, fight for his family, his people, for the weak and vulnerable who are being oppressed.

The drive to the ecstasy of just love and to the valor of just war are gospel matters. The sexual union pictures the cosmic mystery of the union of Christ and his church. The call to fight is grounded in a God who protects his people, a Shepherd Christ who grabs his sheep from the jaws of the wolves.

The whole thing is great. I hope you’ll take the time to read the rest.

Combing the Net – 4/18/2012

Clean Up Your Inbox: Pro Tips — Nobody needs this advice more than me. I’m ashamed to admit that my online packrattedness has gotten well out of hand. I have never permanently deleted an e-mail from this computer, leaving me with a total of about 17,000 messages stored on my hard drive. Because you never know when you’re going to need to reference one… right?

How Religion Is Portrayed In Video Games — This was a pretty interesting video from Gamespot’s Danny O’Dwyer, an atheist who is nonetheless troubled by the reluctance of the video game industry to represent religion without resorting to stereotypes. Warning: contains some NSFW language.

Do You Believe In Common Grace? — A short note from the pastor of Nashville’s Immanuel Church on why he enjoys (and frequently posts on his blog) secular music. If this topic interests you, I can’t recommend Russell Moores weekly podcast “The Cross and the Jukebox” highly enough!

Youth Ministry’s Tendency Toward Legalism — Thoughtful reflections from a youth pastor who sees four challenges (which are not necessarily unique to youth ministry) that result in a tendency to teach moralism rather than grace.

Scripture-Twisting on the Campaign Trail — Michael Horton takes to task those on both the political left and right for quoting Scripture out of context to fit their agenda. I wrote something similar during the 2008 campaign season, but Horton’s a much better thinker/writer than I am!

The Jesus Storybook Bible Curriculum Kit — I’ve written before about how much I love the Jesus Storybook Bible, so I’m really excited to know that they’ve now produced a curriculum kit based on this Bible for use in Sunday School classes! You can read more about it here, but you can purchase it cheaper here. There’s also this helpful video preview: