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popular culture (29)

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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My Sad Farewell to the Pro-Life Movement

As I began to realize a few days ago, when I spoke of the “Baffling Clash: Pro-Life Leaders v Donald J. Trump,” some of us cannot be part of movements. As someone who believes every person’s inalienable right to life begins at conception, I’m saddened to discover I cannot be part of the pro-life movement. The insistence of this movement’s leaders on lockstep conformity to the women-who-abort-are-guiltless-victims position, however, has made clear…

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Baffling Clash: Pro-Life Leaders v Donald J. Trump

Trump image by Michael Vadon, used under license (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons. Today’s “Morning Jolt...with Jim Geraghty” e-mail (free from National Review) contains an interesting passage on the latest Donald Trump controversy. Here it is, as it appears in my response to the sender: I have to admit, the dominant view of career pro-life activists on this issue has me baffled. If you hire a hit man and he accepts…

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(A)sexual: (A) Weird Documentary

I saw a very strange documentary recently: (A)sexual (directed by Angela Tucker, Arts Engine Inc., 2011). The premise of the film, which takes for granted the contemporary belief that people have innate sexual orientations (inclinations to have sex with persons of the opposite, their own, or both sexes: heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, respectively), is that there are people who have an orientation not generally acknowledged: asexuality (an innate lack of inclination to…

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Conservative Abortion-Ban-Exception Delusions

Believing true what one wants to be true rather than what actually is true may be a less prevalent phenomenon among conservatives than liberals, but it is certainly not unknown among conservatives. For instance, one needn’t watch Fox New, the Fox Business Network, or an economics-related conservative event for long to hear someone who has been successful in the free market argue that his experience is “proof” that all one has to…

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Protest Unwarranted: Robertson's Remarks Were Just Ducky

No sooner had I recovered sufficiently from an illness to watch some news than I was greeted by a story highlighting once again the sorry state of our dieing culture. Members of the homosexual lobby (known in corrupt contemporary English as “gays”) apparently read GQ, since their (as always) loud and emotional condemnation of public statements unfriendly to their irrational and unbiblical worldview has gotten Phil Robertson, patriarch of the hugely popular…

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Evolutionists' Fear and Loathing in San Diego

Earlier this week, an email from my local creation museum informed me that said museum had been refused membership in the area’s Museum Council. I’d spoken to employees and friends of the museum the day that some representatives of the Council had visited, so I knew those representatives had been favorably impressed and that museum employees and friends fully expected their Council application to be approved. Dour gloom-and-doomer that I am, my…

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Bad Times at Grifols Biomat: Local Business Reviewed

Though only some remarks after “One final bit of irritation” are relevant to the Pious Eye site’s purpose, I’ve found no review site that will keep something of this length posted. Besides, Pious Eye is also my personal blog (at times, after a fashion), and this is a bit of my recent personal history. On the 5-star rating system standard to review sites, I give two stars to the Biomat Plasma Center…

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Don't Let Addiction to “Addiction” Cloud Your Reasoning

Christians active in the battle against pornography have lately been excited by news of a not-yet-peer-reviewed Cambridge study popularly reported to prove that “porn addiction” is as real as addiction to drugs or alcohol. When I first heard about this (in an email from Breakpoint), I was skeptical, since I recalled (or thought I recalled!) from a couple Physiological Psychology courses that alcohol and drugs don't just prompt certain patterns of brain…

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Rape and Rationality

Anyone who knows me knows my conviction that contemporary Americans feel too much and think too little. Lack of “impulse control” isn't just for the “poorly socialized” anymore; it's a culture-wide phenomenon. Emotionally charged, cognitively vacuous rants and shout-downs have replaced calm, controlled, rational discussion in many (most?) venues. This trend especially prevails where topics that have always been emotionally charged are concerned. One such topic is rape. As a couple news…

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