Links for your Friday (4/16)

Some of you may find this interesting, some may not, but Anthony Bradley from WORLD Magazine wrote about the end of an era. The era of the emerging church.

Because post-modernism as movement is also dead as scientific realism emerged as a recent culture-shaping philosophical movement, the generation of Christians struggling to meet the challenges of post-modernism, instead of yelling at it hoping it would go way, are shifting as well to address a world asking different questions. While the effects of the emerging church movement will linger for some time we will begin to see books praising and attacking the movement go out of print.

This obituary for the emerging church was also pretty interesting. I used to be one who would have considered myself a part of the movement. Well from afar at least. I read McLaren, I listened to Rob Bell, I liked to argue theological doctrine just for the sake of arguing. But I got tired of it. I learned a whole lot from Bell and McLaren and will still occasionally listen and read both (and if you read the article you'll find out that even Bell seems to be shifting) but I've fled to the reformed camp.

Over at the Resurgence Justin Hyde posted on how he pastors his family. I found this not only challenging, but encouraging and even exciting as we're almost a month away from our family going from two to three. This was one of the most challenging lines for me:

I get home from work between 5:30PM and 5:45PM each night. But I have to prepare myself before 5:30PM so that I can hit the ground running when I walk in the door. Though I am invariably tired from my day's work, I have to remind myself that the most important part of my vocation happens after 5:30PM, not before. I am tempted to mentally "clock out" on my drive home, which would be easy. Yet I have to consciously prepare myself to give more energy, more attention, and more dedicated focus as soon as I walk through the door and am greeted by my 5 year old son, 3 year old daughter, newborn son, and wife than I have all day. This takes prayer, practice, and intentionality.

I'd encourage any father to read the full article.

Oops.. I aborted the wrong baby. Dr. Mohler discusses a news article about an abortionists who mistakenly aborted the wrong twin:

A Sarasota doctor has lost his license for mistakenly aborting a healthy twin during a procedure targeting a deformed fetus. Immediately after the Florida Board of Medicine’s decision Saturday, Dr. Matthew Kachinas was involuntarily hospitalized because he said he planned to commit suicide. Kachinas had blamed faulty ultrasound equipment for the 2006 mistake. He was targeting a fetus with Down syndrome and signs of a heart defect.

This issue has been on my mind lately after overhearing a comment in the checkout line at Walmart. A middle aged gentlemen was talking to two 20 year olds about why he doesn't support Sarah Palin. I couldn't believe how matter-of-factly he said this: "I mean look at her, she knew her child was going to have Down sydndrome, and she had it anyway." To be honest I don't know if I've ever felt as much anger before. In retrospect I know that I should have said something, but the thoughts that were going through my mind were not helpful or loving or pro-life. So I remained silent. But, based on statistics, this is what a large portion of Americans think. You may not hear it stated so blatantly, but judging by our actions it seems obvious.

And along those same thoughts here's a youtube video about a young man who has was born without eyes as well as many other disabilities, but his answer when asked to describe his disabilities: "not disabilities, more like abilities."