You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August, 2008.
I’ve decided to add a new category to this blog: book reviews. It seems the few I’ve done in the past were helpful to people. I’m just about to finish Calvin’s Institutes so I’ll have that up in a few weeks. Also I’ve added a side bar on the right hand column listing books I recommended linking to where you may obtain them. (Not all these books have I reviewed on this site.) In time I intend to include other media reviews. For now though, enjoy browsing and let me know what you think.
With additional news exposing the Pope of Green, I’ve decided to write about the relation of buying carbon offsets to the papal indulgences of the sixteenth century.
The Popes authorized the sale of indulgences to fund the cathedrals and other projects in Rome. By buying an indulgence one could reduce the amount of punishment for one’s sins, or one’s deceased relatives’ sins (by reducing one’s time in purgatory). By the sixteenth century many unscrupulous indulgence sellers preyed upon the ignorant and poor. Perhaps the most famous was Johann Teztel, to whom the lyric, “As a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs,” is attributed. In the Reformation, Martin Luther argued that true repentance is preferred over the selling of indulgences, and the purpose of good works is not to better ourselves or our relation with God but is to be directed toward our neighbours.
Likewise, in our day, individuals (and corporations) may buy carbon offsets to balance out their pollution. A vast storehouse filled with the merit of environmentally virtuous companies is available for those of us who pollute the earth. Disregarding how this merit is obtained, does this not encourage an easy solution to polluting entities? No longer is careful (and difficult) stewardship required, but our environmental sin is absolved with the stroke of a pen. The purchaser of the carbon credit is no longer required to live environmentally responsibly but may use the supererogatory works of the more pollution-responsible entities.
If Johann Tetzel were alive today would he write:
As the carbon offset is traded,
Air and water around are cleansèd.
and receive such response:
Carbon trading on the market
makes a profitable racket
(Well, I’m not going to win any prizes for poetry.)
Recently I ordered this book from Westminster Bookstore for our expected child.
I enjoy this book by Sally Lloyd-Jones immensely. Unlike many other collections of Bible stories for children, The Jesus Storybook Bible has as its predominant theme the account of Jesus and how God saves for himself a people. Even the subtitle alludes to this, Every Story Whispers His Name.
The introduction (cleverly titled ‘The Story and The Song’) begins with God declaring his love for us and implanting his image in us. The introduction continues to explain that the Bible is God’s revelation to mankind. Being God’s revelation to us, the Bible is not a book of rules or a book of heroes to emulate. Rather The Jesus Storybook states that the Bible is about God and what he has done (thus not about us and what we’re to do or rules to obey) and the so-called heroes of the Bible are flawed. In its own words, ‘The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne — everything — to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy that has com true in real life! ¶ You see the best thing about this Story is — it’s true. ¶ There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling on Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.’
Additionally, each episode includes a paragraph explaining how the chapter ties in with this metanarrative of the Bible.
The illustrations by Jago are wonderfully done in a unique [digital] coloured pencil style. The only caveat is that the book’s illustrations include depictions of Jesus. Although Jesus is (fortunately) not depicted as a handsome, blue-eyed, Anglo-Saxon male, the images run counter to historic (confessional) Reformed teaching on the matter*. However with the creative use of some self-adhesive paper notes, this problem should be rectified.
Overall, I’m sure Baby Hall will enjoy hearing and (eventually) reading this wonderful book.
* Future blog post, perhaps.
Just as old or bleary-eyed men and those with weak vision, if you thrust before them a most beautiful volume, even if they recognize it to be some sort of writing, yet can scarcely construe two words, but with the aid of spectacles will begin to read distinctly; so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.
—Institutes of Christian Religion: (I. vi. 1): John Calvin
