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pious eye site archive (181)

“The communion which holy souls have with God consists in their having an eye of faith towards him, as a God that has an eye of favour towards them. The intercourse is kept up by the eye.” — Matthew Henry

The Pious Eye: Seeing by the True Light site at PiousEye.com had a good run. But it finally became an intolerable drain on the author’s financial resources. This tag identifies posts originating on that site. Links to the old site within those posts will all be updated — eventually.

Christ-Centered Hermeneutics: A Binge-Worthy Video Series

While, from a Bible-believing perspective, popular entertainment never merits the “binge-worthy” descriptor, it turns out there are some online resources that do. Combining a speaker’s presentation of sound theology with a digitally generated environment reminiscent of DOS-based computer games, this series from 2006, which I just discovered, is an example: David P. Murray speaks on fundamental issues of biblical hermeneutics (interpretation) for freechurchseminary.org (posted by Stornoway Free Church).

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Visit (to Library) Prompts Letter (to Publisher): Sikh Edition

This is a letter I just wrote to an organization promoting Sikhism, the youngest of the so-called “world religions.” Encountering some Sikh beliefs in a recent editing project, I became curious, visited my local library, and checked out the Sikh Religion book identified in the letter. (To be precise, I put in a request for the two books on the subject listed in the library system’s online catalog, received notification that one…

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Moore, #MeToo Lamentations

Though I’ve given up both major parties as hopeless cases (David M. Hodges, “Constitution or Libertarian Party: Which for the Pious? Pious Eye site, 18 May 2016), I’m saddened by some things about the defeat of Republican Roy Moore (Senate candidate, Alabama special election, 12 December 2017), the accusations that made it happen, and the discussion surrounding those accusations. Aspects of related recent news (#metoo) also make me sad. Though construing Moore’s…

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Worth Reading...with Healthy Skepticism: Carrin's Spirit-Empowered Theology

Carrin, Charles, D.D. Spirit-Empowered Theology. Minneapolis: Chosen, 2017. 351 pages. $19.99 retail. ISBN 978-0-8007-9817-8. I am not part of the signs-and-wonders (Pentecostal, charismatic, and Third Wave) movement, nor has this book tempted me to join up. Though my Reformed Baptist convictions remain intact, I did find Spirit-Empowered Theology enjoyable reading overall, sometimes edifying (96-7, e.g.), and a good survey of the signs-and-wonders way of thinking. I admit that Carrin’s overuse of “impact”…

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My Sad Farewell to Vimeo, with Protest and Reflection Suggestions

“Leaving Vimeo” image © 2017 by Pious Eye (David M. Hodges). Created using, and modifying, three Wikimedia Commons images: two public domain image (one by Vimeo, one released to the public domain by user ZyMOS) and one Creative-Commons-2.0-licensed image by Marcin Wichary from San Francisco, U.S.A. One disturbing thing about the rise of the World Wide Web as people’s main source of information is that, though sites like Vimeo and Facebook, and…

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Good Motives, Middling Result: Hambrick's Do Ask, Do Tell, Let's Talk

Image: Pious Eye (David M. Hodges) modification and combination of images showing support of and opposition to homosexuality, acquired through Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licenses permitting adaptation. Source images are as follows: (1) flags for sale at Gay Pride 2015, Toulouse, by Gyrostat under CC BY-SA 4.0 license; (2) protesters at Gay Pride 2005, Jerusalem, by Benj (Flickr) under CC BY 2.0 license. In accord with the more restrictive of the…

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The Materialist Face of Bouw: Do Omnipotence, Omnipresence Make God a Plenum?

Image: Mysterious galaxy abstract, released to the public domain by its creator, Lynn Greyling, through the Public Domain Pictures site. I’ve recently started reading an interesting book by Gerardus D. Bouw, PhD: Geocentricity: Christianity in the Woodshed (Cleveland: Association for Biblical Astronomy, 2013). As I’ve read the beginning of the sixth chapter, on “The Biblical Firmament,” I’ve run across what strikes me as some very odd reasoning (55, 58-60). Since odd reasoning,…

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Pentecostal Outpourings...the Reformed Way

Smart, Robert Davis, Michael A. G. Haykin, and Ian High Clary, editors. Pentecostal Outpourings: Revival and the Reformed Tradition. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016. Paperback, 260 + xii pages. ISBN 978-1-6018-433-9. This is an excellent and edifying book. An effective combination of sound research, sustained scholarly reflection, solid Reformed theology, and strong pastoral focus on an all-of-life Christian piety that goes far beyond assent to correct doctrines, Pentecostal Outpourings: Revival and…

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Disenfranchised by Top-Two Open Primaries

Pious Eye (David M. Hodges) posted a comment on someone else’s IVN article, as well as a related one on his own. Bottom line: old closed primary was better than California’s current top-two system, and David wants a “none of the above” option. Comment 1. Comment 2.

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