Outsourcing Controversial Opinions.

From time to time, I like to share collections of links that have informed my thinking, or that I would love to share with a wider audience. Today's post is one of these, and is so-titled as it deals with a range of topics. Some of the posts I link to today are about marriage, a couple about bodies and sexuality, others about Isis, a couple about the Bible and evangelicalism, and one about a seemingly quaint and obscure doctrinal discussion. Thus, I think, the topics are bang on trend for this blog!

Firstly, a review from the Gospel Coalition of a new book that has caused a stir - Pete Enns' For the Bible Tells me so. I'm not sure whether I will bother reading the book to be honest, but do read the review here. Some may call me something of a fundamentalist/biblicist, but I'm not convinced that most people read the Bible in the way Enns is critiquing, but that is another story for another post for another day.

Secondly, a couple of posts about marriage. Regular readers will know that I've blogged regularly about the topic, and there have been a few blog posts recently that really caught my eye. Fristly, from John Piper's Desiring God Ministry, a great piece from Francis Chan titled Marriage on the Edge of Eternity. Secondly, and linked to the gender-neutral-marriage debate but not about it, is an excellent piece looking at the biblical vision of marriage from a different angle, considering what a Christian vision of marriage and divorce might look like in the public square. Do go and read it over at First Things.

I'm not normally one to comment on the lives of celebrities, but the furore over the naked image leaks on the internet of Jennifer Lawrence and others resulted in some interesting articles. I found this one - linking the incident and sexting - to be quite interesting. On a related note, the excellent blog at Fight the New Drug had some excellent comments, which you can read here.  I'll likely be blogging about pornography soon.


I had some good feedback and on/offline discussions in the light of my post considering both the Israel/Gaza conflict and the complex terror of ISIS/ISIL in the Middle East. If you haven't read that, you can read it on my blog here. One interesting spin off from this story came in the form of the slightly farcical organsiation, 'The National Union of Students'. Adding to their reputation of ineptitude and irrelevance, both the Spectator magazine and the Catholic Herald newspaper observe and comment (reasonably, I think!) on the bizarre failure of the NUS to Condemn ISIS. These are two posts which deal with a clear issue, and examine our own failure and quirks as a culture. Recommended reading. 

Finally, a couple of posts which I found fascinating but probably will not be of interest to all my readers. Fristly, a brilliant post on an interesting phenomenon, that of so-called 'Progressive Evangelicals'. Written by the incisive Derek Rishmawy over at Mere Orthodoxy, this is a great post that really engages with a number of interesting trends, and begins by critically comparing the progressive evangelical blogosphere to the Reformed evangelical equivalent. To close out this odd special menu of posts, another great piece from Desiring God, this time looking at the thorny topic of Limited/Definite Atonement. This is a fascinating interview with the controversial and intriguingly provocative pastor Doug Wilson.

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Thankyou for reading, I hope this has been thought-provoking or even helpful. I'd appreciate comments, or to connect with you and continue a conversation via Twitter or Facebook.