Christian Carnival CCXLIII

Welcome to the 243rd Christian Carnival!

Yes, I’m hosting. I had every intention of working on a really clever theme, and grouping the posts by relating them to Rich Mullins songs … this being a week after the anniversary of his death.

However, I’m in the process of fighting a brutal version of the common cold that has turned my brain into cotton balls. Frankly, this is going to be more like “The NyQuil Edition” of the Christian Carnival. (No, I’m not grouping the posts by symptoms … although that might be fun, too.) Sorry …

Anyway, there are apparently some Christians blogging out in the world whose brains are very much alive, well, and cotton-free.

Without further adieu, therefore, here are the posts of the 243rd Christian Carnival:

Mark Olson at Pseudo-Polymath (which you’ve got to admit, is one of the coolest blog names out there!) posts “Carnival of Christian Reconciliation: Considering Liturgical Chaos” for us. Yes, he’s linking to another Carnival! I’ll pretend not to take that personally. As he describes the post:

While this is written for a less regularly held carnival, I think it is of interest here. What might we make of our liturgical differences. I attend a liturgical church. In this post, I pose a question for those who do not.

Claudia from Standing Straight has a very clever post looking at home designs and using them to talk about the futility of worldly thinking in “Building Spiritual Homes.” As she describes it:

Some unusual home designs caught my eye this week – they aren’t very practical and it made me think of how we can come up with clever ideas for living that, unless in agreement with God’s Word, will also be unprofitable.

Casey Petersen at The Limitless ties the nation’s financial problems directly to our moral problems in one of the clearest ways that I’ve seen anyone do in “The Moral Recession of America.” Nicely done, Casey! Casey says:

The Financial Crisis is just a symptom of the larger Moral Recession in America.

I couldn’t agree more!

FMF of Free Money Finance asks “Is It OK for a Christian Church to Accept Credit Card Donations?” That’s probably an issue that will keep coming up in the near future, and we might as well look into what we think and believe now, right?

Just like money is amoral, so are credit cards — they are neither good nor bad in and of themselves. It’s how they’re used that matters.

Somehow I’ve got into a financial theme, huh? Next in line is Richard H. Anderson of dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos who presents “A Modern Day Reading of the Parable” referring to the Parable of the Laborers, Lehman Brothers, and AIG.

Diane R. of Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet has some comments about the book “Blue Like Jazz,” which she shares with us in “Blue Like Huh?“

The young Christians just love Donald Miller’s book, “Blue Like Jazz.” I’ve read it and I think it’s awful. Is this a generational difference or something else?

Drew Tatusko of Notes from Off-Center poses the question, “Can a Same-Sex Couple Receive Christ?” In the modern era, it’s another question we’ll have to face more and more … what do you think? Drew says:

The question is if there is a healthy gay relationship in which one can learn better how to relate to God? I think there is and there is ample evidence from gay partnerships that this is true. So can a gay couple receive the love of Christ (which includes an ethical demand to love God and neighbor) in their relationship more fully than outside that relationship?

Ronnica, writing at Tale of a Kansas Girl, reminds us of “Men and Women of Whom the World is Not Worthy” — and even does it without dangling the preposition! She notes that too many of us forget about persecution that Christians face in the world, and the evangelists who dare to stand up to that kind of evil for the work to which we’re called.

Sunday’s sermon was out of the end of Hebrews 11. Certainly not a fluffy message, but neither is the gospel.

This week at Light Along the Journey, John wasn’t sure whether he should write a Bible study or a John Wayne script, so he sort of did both in his post How to Keep from Getting Bushwacked! This was a very enjoyable post. I loved it.

Rodney Olsen at (where else?) RodneyOlsen.net asks about a new development in the Christian subculture, this time in the form of a new tech service. Specifically, he asks, “Do We Need a Christian Twitter?” Of course, since I can’t even figure out why anyone needs a Twitter anyway, maybe I’m not qualified to answer that question.

Michael at Sermon Select Online offers a sermon from 1997 about justification by faith in “Romans 5 Justified” He says:

Tom is a gifted teacher; able to communicate profound theological concepts of the New Covenant in an easy to understand manner that blesses the listener with insights into the “deeper things of God”.

Francois Viljoen at Liberta-Freedom reminds us that we’re all offered wisdom, and compares it to other desirable things … this post might well make you hungry, by the way. Francois says about the post:

The first article in a series on wisdom. This article takes a look at what the Bible says about how you can become wise.

Heath Countryman at Espirit d’Escalier takes a practical look at life and how we interact with others in a pizza restaurant dealing with the wake of Hurricane Ike. The post is called “3 Days, 36 hours, and $7,000 worth of pizza.” Really, what can you add to that?

Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength talks about “A Question of Ethics: Media and Disaster Preparation” in another Ike-related post.

Weekend Fisher, close to the coast in the Hurricane Ike strike zone, raises a challenge as to whether the hysterical headlines have been entirely ethical. In the comments, a news station employee weighs into the conversation.

Honzo, at Theology for the Masses, asks about how to deal with Christians with differing views in “The Christian Other.” I know a lot of people who have wrestled with this kind of issue, and it’s a great topic to discuss. How do we deal with those with whom we disagree?

I have tried to let everyone who submitted a post know that I got the submission, but I know that I didn’t comment on a few, especially the ones at came in in the past hour or two. There were also a couple posts outside the range of this Carnival, and I will update if I get replies to the e-mails I sent to those people.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Carnival … and thank you to everyone reading!

The Christian Carnival is a weekly collection, posted every Wednesday, of blog posts by Christians of any persuasion, submitted by the bloggers ourselves, and hosted by any number of Christian bloggers.

Want to submit an article? Just choose a post (one post only per Carnival per blogger, please!) and click here.

Want to find where the Carnival will be each week? Click here.