Cardus makes The Globe

My esteemed protégé and part-time colleague, Rob Joustra, has teamed up with his Cardus colleague Alissa Wilkinson to author Not their parents' conservatism, which appears in today's Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. Definitely must-read material.

Thomistic penmanship

Who knew? When Fordham University posted this sample of Thomas Aquinas' handwriting on its page for today's Natural Law Colloquium, it provided needed evidence for something that had been only conjecture up to now: the late mediaeval theologian's writings were obviously transcribed for the printed page by pharmacists.

Constantinople

A song beloved by Byzantine-Rite Calvinists everywhere, though it's been decades since I last heard it. The University Six perform.

A dwindling minority: Assyrian Christians

Several years ago I had a student in my classes who was born in Baghdad and claimed to have grown up speaking both Aramaic and Arabic. Her family are Christian and consider themselves Assyrian, one of the most ancient communities in that part of the world. They had come to Canada some years earlier but had many relatives still in their ancestral Mesopotamian homeland.

However, since the American attack on Iraq seven years ago, many if not most Assyrian Christians have left that country due to persecution. The BBC's Jim Muir reports that Christian neighbourhoods have been targeted in deadly Baghdad attacks. To follow ongoing developments concerning the Assyrian Christian communities, one may consult the Assyrian International News Agency and Assyrian Christian News. Open Doors USA prepared the following video to alert people to the trials of Assyrian Christians in Iraq:



Please remember to pray for our beleaguered brothers and sisters in Christ living in that troubled land. Lord have mercy!

Random act of worship

Upcoming anniversaries

Here is an incomplete list of some of the significant anniversaries taking place over the next several years.

2011 — 400th anniversary of the King James Version Bible

2012 — 450th anniversary of the completion of the Genevan Psalter

2013 — 450th anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism

2014 — 450th anniversary of John Calvin’s death

2015 — 800th anniversary of Magna Carta

2016 — 500th anniversary of the publication of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament

2017 — Martin Luther’s Reformation

Mark these in your calendar, and be sure to order your greeting cards early to avoid the rush.

Theologians thinking through theodicy

Although I am not an academic theologian, I have recently been grappling with a seemingly insuperable problem which for centuries has stumped the best minds in Christendom: How could a good God be so slow to answer a prayer for patience? Proposed solutions may be left in the comments below.

NIV update published

As of today the 2011 update of the New International Version Bible is available online here. Will it be accepted by longtime NIV aficionados, or will it suffer the fate of the TNIV? Time with tell.