Bat Ye'or on Jihad, Waqf and Israel

From 'Israel, Christianity, and Islam: The Challenge of the Future' in Midstream, February/March 2001, p 3. By Bat Ye'or.

A Cross at Ground Zero? Atheists say NO

I couldn't resist...sorry.

The Colbert Report
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Myths about the Middle Ages

I get tired of hearing from Muslims and (more recently atheists) about how bad and terrible the Middle Ages were. Here is a good summary of the myth we were taught, and which is wrong:

 One fable that most of us absorbed, usually in childhood thanks to school teachers, was the pretty fable of "the Renaissance".  It tells of how the Greeks and Romans founded western civilisation and invented things which were good, like science and reason and realistic art and nice buildings.  But then the Roman Empire collapsed and Europe fell into the "Dark Ages" when everyone was ignorant and stupid and superstitious and dirty and feudal.  But luckily along came the glorious Renaissance, where Leonardo invented flying machines and paintings became realistic and therefore good again and everyone became much cleaner and more rational.

Read more here at Armarium Magnum.

Church planting movements--a very brief introduction

Major problem for would-be missionaries: student debt

When we left for the mission field back in the day I had about $5000 of student loans to pay off, and my wife had none. I didn't mind the idea of just continuing to pay it off (I think the payment was $110 per month) but my wife felt it would better to use some of our savings to pay it off, so we did.

But I went to an inexpensive state university and lived frugally. What about students who go to private universities and maybe don't live so frugally? And what about the rising cost of higher education in the USA? They can accrue a very large amount of debt pretty easily. What then should missionary agencies do when one of these students approaches them and applies to be a missionary?

This timely article addresses some of the complexities involved and proposes a creative answer.

Check it out here.