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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| One Book Tag. |
Apparently these things come in waves... Fred Butler over at Hip and Thigh has tagged me with the one book tag. I feel honored of course, because Fred is one of those really thoughtful and articulate people in the blogosphere - and I feel like the ugly kid who gets asked to go to the prom with the not ugly kid. Well, you know what I mean.
Anyway, it seems a good start to my weekend...
1. One book that changed your life (other than the Bible):
 I am going to step out of tradition here. Most people in answering this question are likely to draw upon some wonderful, inspirational work that changed their life for the better. In answering this, I began by saying that frankly, the bible was the only book that ever changed my life - but here again, I was thinking "for the better." As I began to put that thought to text, I realized that one book, well, a group of books actually, had changed my life much earlier, though not necessarily for the better...
 The year was 1983. I was almost sixteen years old. Rona Jaffe's "Mazes and Monsters" (starring a young Tom Hanks) was being aired on network television, and my older sister's boyfriend happened to be over watching it with us. The story follows an undiagnosed schizophrenic (Tom Hanks) whose condition begins to manifest itself through his playing a Role Playing Game (RPG) at college. The name of the game is "Mazes and Monsters" - but my sister's boyfriend had played the real game that the movie was portraying, and the real game was called "Dungeons and Dragons."
 I confess, it seemed to me to be the coolest thing in the world. The movie portrayed it as evil - you know, if you play this you will go crazy and start killing people. But I was already too old to be spoonfed gibberish like that. My sister's boyfriend had the "Dungeon Master's Guide" (First picture), and lent it to me.
I was hooked. A few months later I passed a group young men playing "Advanced" Dungeons and Dragons in the school cafeteria, I sat with them - and for the next fifteen years of my life I was absolutely hooked on Role Playing Games. Every friend that I had was a "roleplayer" - we met several times each week - often every day for weeks on end, to play games for hours at a time - and I don't mean an hour or two - I mean six to twelve hours as the typical venue.
Now, this was a mixed curse and a blessing. Prior to Dungeons and Dragons, my friends were all junkies and thieves. I am not exaggerating either, I was out stealing bikes at night, sneaking out of the house at midnight to party and get stoned and drunk. My life revolved around drugs and crime - and everything else that goes with that. Having a sudden interest in a time consuming hobby saved me from a life of crime and drugs. Notwithstanding, the time consumed playing role playing games was almost entirely wasted - and even when I met and married my wife, role playing still had first place in my heart. One day, the Lord put his foot down, and fifteen years or so of nothingness was thrown in the trash, where it has remained to this day.
So in a real sense, these books changed the course of my life, and helped me to avoid an early, and devastating shipwrecked life. My siblings have not been so fortunate...
2. One book you've read more than once:
I probably read those three AD&D books tens of times. But I have been on about that at length already. One book that I have enjoyed many times has been "The Hobbit" - Tolkein wrote it after he had written the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it it was a great read, and still is.
3. One book you'd want on a Desert Island:
One of those waterproof army survival manuals - hands down. I can imagine the poor sot sitting there with a copy of "Gone with the wind" or something - smacking their foreheads when they realize they could have had a survival manual had they given the thing any thought.
4. One book that made you laugh:
I don't read a lot of Comedy. I guess I am pretty shallow in this way, but the books that typically make me laugh are comic book - Gary Larson's "Far Side" helped in this way. I can't remember where I found the book - I think it was my parents - but I though "Far Side" was my kind of humor. I loved it. I can still recall this one frame where students are practicing breaking boards in a martial arts academy, and out the window you see aliens attacking the city - and they are all shaped like boards - one guy comes running in yelling that "this is what we have been training for" or something like that - that kind of humor kills me, half inside joke, half social commentary - all silly.
5. One book that made you cry (or feel really sad):
How about the first one that made me cry? I was about seven or eight, and I was reading "Planet of the Apes." by Pierre Boulle - one of my first "big" books. There is a scene in the book where one of the younger apes climbs a tree and overhears a conspiratorial conversation by some other apes, big, bad, mean apes - and he is discovered and killed. I couldn't believe it, it was so unjust, so cruel. I wept.
6. One book that you wish had been written:
Pilgrim's Progress. (whoops, that's been done already.. H/T Jim.)
"Duncan Campbell - an autobiography."
7. One book that you wish had never been written:
The Da Vinci Code. Not that it is really bothering me - but that it was written in an age sorely lacking discernment - and no matter how we toil to mop up all that misinformation - you just know you'll never get it all.
8. One Book You're Currently Reading:
I am currently reading:
The Case for A Creator (Lee Strobel) - My brother-in-law gave it to me as a Christmas gift.
Why Revival Tarries (Leonard Ravenhill) - A great man of prayer.
Life in the Father's House: A Member's Guide to the Local Church (Wayne A. Mack, David Swavely) - Haven't gotten too far in this yet, but it looks good.
Systematic Theology (Wayne Grudem) - I like.... I like! This is a slow read though.
The Bondage of the Will (Martin Luther, intro by J.I. Packer) - excellent read - simply excellent. I could have put this one in the "book that made me laugh" category - Luther is caustic, and I find caustic funny.
The Da Vinci Deception (Erwin Lutzer) - shortly after listening to Frank Turk's series on the Da Vinci code, I was offered a free copy of Lutzer's book. It is quite digestable. I could read the whole of it in an afternoon, but I am taking it slowly.
A Christianity That Really Works (Ron Marr) - you can download a copy for free. Amazing stuff.
To be sure, I am doing a couple of daily devotionals - but they don't count. I am presently away from my reading material - and I may have missed a book or two. C'est la vie. Those are the books I am currently reading.
9. One Book you've been meaning to read:
I should like to read a good "biblical" theology. I haven't decided which one yet, but when I decide I will get to it.
10. Now tag five people:
Okay. I gave you guys a break on the last tag - but it seems my tender, lovingkindness has been abused - so rather than paint a bulls-eye on my blog for tags, I am going to tag five people - in no particular order:
ThirstyDavid
Even So
Daniel J. Phillips - Kim tagged him already, so I am just upping the ante - not that Daniel reads my blog...
Frank Martens
Jeremy Weaver
Alright. No more memes for at least a week. ;-) |
posted by Daniel @
7:51 AM
 
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| 23 Comments: |
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Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology...I like...I like too!
Keep us posted as to when you find a good Biblical Theology.
Mark
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Our third child has entered into the three year old "I am the boss of the world" phase of her life - and in spite of constant reminders that this is not in fact so, she is still holding out. That has made reading a luxury indeed.
When I find a good biblical theology I will let the word out. I should also like to get another historical theology. I haven't read one in a while, and they are (typically) very engaging reads.
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I always loved (that is the right word for it) the "Deities & Demigods" book. We used to play since '78, but I stopped around '86, never went back, and when I saw the first picture you posted it gave me chills.
I used to have imaginary battles, and as I walked around school I thought of myself as Asmodeus, nice stuff that D&D, (sarcasm) I'm sure glad that people told us what you look at never has any effect on you at all (/sarcasm).
BTW, I don't want to do this, but the Holy Spirit and all....
you have my name and address right, but DJP's name has my address when you move over it..like I said, I wish I hadn't seen that, what a great way to drive my own traffic up, but alas...
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Haha...
You are not makign it easy to keep my posts sporadic.
I'm supposed to be writing a paper on youth ministry! :)
I'll see if I can bust something out for tomorrow.
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Me too, me too on the biblical theology book. I also like Wayne Grudem's book.
I love Far Side. It still cracks me up even though I've them so many times.
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JD - you mean the original Deities and Demigods? The one that still had the Melnibonian mythos?
I fixed the link - sorry about having to half the incoming traffic to your blog - but you know..
Kim - new avatar?? You can't go changing avatars all the time - it throws people off. ;-)
Seriously I like Grudem's Systematic Theology the best of all the systematic theologies I have read so far.
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Get Vos's "Biblical Theology". I read about 1/2 (I still plan on finishing the other half) of it and I enjoyed it, although he's not the easiest read. If you want a biblical theology of only the NT, George Ladd's "A Theology of the new Testament" is excelent.
Bryan
SDG
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All right, Daniel, I've done it. I'll get you for this.
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David - Joe Serious was hilarious.
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I'm done with mine too...
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Daniel, have you ever had an avatar that shows the back of your head? I don't think you have. You oughta try it, although I did have someone e-maile me and say she missed the other one.
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It was Joe Spiritual. I know, I messed up and changed his name at the end, but I fixed it. Then I fixed your comment so you wouldn't look stupid.
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David, do you often edit people's comments? :)
Daniel, wasn't Pilgrim Progress actually written?
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Jim,
Usually just when they disagree with me.
No, actually, I've never done it before. This time, I either had to add a comment explaining that Daniel wasn't hallucinating, or just cheat and hide the evidence; so I cheated.
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Jim - clearly you are the only one reading the whole thing...
I must have read that as "one book you are glad was written" or something.
Hmm. I think I will go change it, now that David has set the precedent...
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Daniel, I was thinking it was a book you wished you had written.
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Daniel I liked Far Side also, and then came along Bloom County...and then came along Calvin and Hobbes...and there my allegiance is steadfast.
Actually, I have a dry sense of humor.
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When Bloom County stopped, I stopped reading the funnies, and I have never gone back...
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Daniel J. Phillips - Kim tagged him already, so I am just upping the ante - not that Daniel reads my blog....
Correct.
(Wait.....)
I did the meme. No lousy T-shirt.
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Avast! The only book with words that I ever read was in first grade, it was called "Dick and Jane get a puppy." I couldn't even make it half way through... so I dropped out of school and sought my fortune on the high seas.
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Hey I'll be curious to hear what you think about the Strobel book. I've read it as well.
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Daniel,
I was going to do this meme, but you stole all my answers.
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Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology...I like...I like too!
Keep us posted as to when you find a good Biblical Theology.
Mark