Category Archives: Blogging

Posts about blogging, fellow bloggers, and blog administration

Meeting Suzanne, and viewing the treasures of London

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Last Sunday my fiancée Lorenza and I were very pleased to meet Suzanne McCarthy, who blogs at Suzanne’s Bookshelf. She writes about meeting me here. She and a friend were visiting London from Canada. We had arranged to meet up at the British Library, to look at the gallery of manuscripts and printed treasures.

The Lindisfarne Gospels: Gospel of St Matthew the Evangelist, initial page

The Lindisfarne Gospels: Gospel of St Matthew the Evangelist, initial page

I had been there before, but still found the collection amazing. Suzanne’s primary interest was the beautiful Lindisfarne Gospels, which  include the oldest surviving translation of any of the Bible into (Old) English. I was more excited to find sitting together in the same museum case two of the three most important Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus (Vaticanus remains in the Vatican). In the next case was part of the Old Testament of Sinaiticus, now separately bound, which is one of the main sources for the Septuagint text.

St Lukes Gospel, Codex Sinaiticus, c.350

St Luke's Gospel, 'Codex Sinaiticus', c.350

[Sinaiticus] was made up of over 1,460 pages, each of which measured approximately 41cm tall and 36cm wide. … At the British Library the largest surviving portion – 347 leaves, or 694 pages – includes the whole of the New Testament.

We also paid a visit to the nearby British Museum. This was far too brief to take in all its treasures, but we got to see the Rosetta Stone, the Assyrian reliefs, and the not yet returned Parthenon friezes, or Elgin Marbles.

The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone

Then we visited the National Portrait Gallery, my first visit, where we found the originals of some familiar images, including this one of John Wesley which has featured on many blogs:

John Wesley, by Nathaniel Hone, oil on canvas, circa 1766

John Wesley, by Nathaniel Hone, oil on canvas, circa 1766

It is a privilege to live only 1½ hours away from such world class treasures, of which these are just a sample. I really should make more of an effort to explore them in detail.

Facebook quiz danger?

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Sorry that blogging here has been so quiet. This is largely because I have been busy preparing for my wedding, on 24th October, and of course spending time with my beautiful fiancée.

In recent weeks several of my Facebook friends have invited me to take interesting quizzes on Facebook. These include Wayne Leman and ElShaddai Edwards, who have done so in blog posts, as well as various friends who have invited me with Facebook notifications.

The problem with this is that when I try to take these quizzes I typically get a message something like:

Allowing access will let it access your Profile information, photos, your friends’ info and other content that it requires to work.

I am required to allow this access before I can take the quiz. In other words, I have to give to a piece of software about which I know almost nothing access to personal information not just about myself but also about all my friends. If “your friends’ info” means what is on their profiles, it includes e-mail addresses, sometimes postal addresses and phone numbers (not my own), and all kinds of other details which people are happy to share with their friends, but not to make public.

Of course if the quiz program can access this information, so can its author – who can use it for marketing or sending spam, or sell it to the highest bidder. That may well be a breach of Facebook rules, but how well are these rules enforced?

Presumably each of my Facebook friends who has taken one of these quizzes has given the program permission to access my profile information, which is intended to be for my friends alone to see but not to pass on to unknown third parties. I am not at all happy that any of my friends have done that; I consider that they have acted unethically. But if I chose to de-friend them I would probably hardly have any friends left.

ElShaddai, in a comment in reply to mine, writes:

AFAIK, Peter, the “friends’ info” is applicable to the last step in the quiz where it asks you if you want to invite your friends to take the quiz.

Indeed, as far as he knows. But what I am worried about is what he doesn’t know, what the unknown author of the quiz software is not saying. He may be right, of course, but how do I know that he is right? I’m afraid “AFAIK” is not an acceptable defence on an ethical issue, just as it isn’t in a court of law.

My real concern is that this quiz program is in fact an elaborate trojan horse, installing itself in millions of Facebook users’ computers worldwide, collecting personal information on the side for some kind of nefarious purpose, or at least for a mass marketing campaign. Can anyone reassure me that there is no danger of this? I know Facebook has had to stop rogue applications before. Could this be another one?

Hear me on the BBC, talking about church attendance statistics

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Sorry this blog has been quiet for a week. I have been enjoying a few days’ break in Italy.

You may have heard me on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon, on the programme More or Less which is about the use and abuse of statistics. I was interviewed last week about church attendance statistics, because the interviewer Paul Vickers had read a post from last year here at Gentle Wisdom, Lies, damned lies and church attendance statistics. And part of the interview was included in the broadcast programme.

You can hear this again on BBC iPlayer, starting at 8:50 minutes, for the next seven days I think and possibly only in the UK. There are two short segments of the interview with me, the first at 11:15. The programme, which is summarised here, will be broadcast again on Sunday 19th April at 8.00 pm. Or you can listen by subscribing to this podcast.

Twitter Church

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Elder Eric of Tominthebox News Network reports on the world’s first Twitter Church, inevitably based in Southern California. The pastor has never met any of his congregation, but keeps in touch with them only through Twitter updates – which, for those of us not already in the know, seems to be the latest fad which has taken over from blogging and Facebook. The pastor says:

I now share with people all the time. I update my Twitter status at least 4 times per hour. Sundays are when things really get special. I now have a group of people that all watch and read as I update my status repeatedly on Sundays from 11 AM to noon. During that hour, I send hymns and sermon notes via Twitter. We also text on our cells during that time. Last week one person even got saved. Although I don’t know who he is or where he lives exactly, I’m thrilled to add one more to the Kingdom.

April Fool? It’s always 1st April at TBNN. But, as a commenter predicts, very likely there will be such a church soon if there isn’t already. Indeed some of my blogging and Facebook friends are already using Twitter updates (which I receive only through Facebook) to report important news in the Christian world. Is a Twitter church the logical next step? Could this be a valid expression of church? I wonder!

Following 7,000

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The irrepressible David Ker, in a post simply entitled 7000, has tried to start up an outrageous meme which has the potential of overrunning the whole Internet with mindless drivel, if the people he tags do what he asks them to do. In the spirit of brotherly love, and since the world might be a better place if the Internet collapses, I will obey his instructions to the letter. Indeed I am copying his whole post just to make sure I haven’t missed anything. 😉

Lingamish has reached a milestone of 7,000 comments on this blog. Gone are the days of badinage and flapdoodle. Hyperbole has given way to humdrum. But 7K is a pretty good sized number.

In honor of this momentous event I’ve decided to make the technorati rank of all my commenters who have blogs soar into the stratosphere. This is like a chain letter. You musn’t break it or we will all get mad at you. I have arbitrarily chosen ten of the most recent commenters on my blog and shown them below. Each of them must copy this entire list into a post on their own blog and add then more of their own commenters. The result is going to be huge amounts of link love.

  1. http://benbyerly.wordpress.com/
  2. http://qaya.org/blog/
  3. truthinministry.org
  4. oliverstegen.net
  5. heissufficient.com
  6. discipuluscripturae.wordpress.com/
  7. http://jwest.wordpress.com/
  8. evepheso.wordpress.com
  9. catchingbeauty.wordpress.com
  10. ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com

OK, everybody, include this list in your post and tag ten other commenters on your blog. What better way to thank all these nice people that make us feel so happy by leaving comments on our blogs?

P.S. The last time I did this someone broke the chain after two weeks and the very next day was torn limb from limb by hyenas. I kid you not. So don’t risk it. Instead let the blessings flow…

Or am I doing this because I am afraid of the hyenas? There aren’t too many here in England, but I’ll stay well away from Mozambique just in case.

Note that I do not endorse the blogs listed above, some of which I have not read and some of which I have read too much of. Here is my list of ten blogs of those recently commenting on my posts – again, I am not endorsing these sites, some of which I don’t know well, but I am omitting some which I prefer not to link to, or which are Lingamish:

  1. Rahab’s Place
  2. Obscene Beauty
  3. The Road to “Elder” ado
  4. iamhealed.net
  5. Friends’ Meeting House
  6. The Sundry Times
  7. This I do…
  8. New Epistles
  9. Seeking His Face
  10. jon sidnell

Interestingly few of these are among the regular circle of bibliobloggers and Anglican and Methodist pastors whose blogs I read regularly. Not all blog regularly, but there are some gems to be found here.

Meanwhile, please comment here! I am just 55 comments short of Lingamish’s 7,000 mark, that’s counting approved comments only (are you counting the same, David?). That’s 6,945 comments on 690 posts (I’m sure Lingamish has more posts than that). Just one more push, perhaps another outrageous post about Todd Bentley, and I can ease past him!

Facebook makes you dumb

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… at least so says, or sings, David Ker.

When I read your blogs I get smarter. When I hang out on Facebook I get much much stupider.

I agree. So, while I will remain a Facebook member at least for now, don’t expect me to hang out on it much.

I’m not like this guy. I don’t install any Facebook extensions, at least not without very good reason.

Hear my voice!

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Many of you have read this blog, but few of you have heard the sound of my voice. Now you have a chance to do so. You can listen to me reading David Ker’s Cyber-Psalm 33. This is the one which I said some nice things about when it was first published.

Months ago David asked me to record this for him, but my first attempt by toll-free telephone didn’t work out. So yesterday, in response to his urgent appeal, I recorded it again using the high quality sound equipment at my church (unfortunately it was sensitive enough to pick up the rustling of the paper I was reading from), and sent the result to David for all to hear.

The words “Hear my voice” have been in my mind this week also for a completely different reason. I was asked to lead a church home group meeting on the subject of hearing and obeying God’s voice. This was based on a chapter in the book “Receiving God’s Best” by Derek Prince. He wrote (p.62):

The success of our relationship with God and our walk with Him depends on hearing His voice.

I agree. But I discovered a small problem in that Prince quotes in support Exodus 15:26 and Deuteronomy 28:1, claiming that these are about hearing God’s voice. These verses start almost but not quite identically in Hebrew. In most translations the former refers to listening to God’s voice, and the latter to obeying it. Why the difference in translation? It is just one letter in Hebrew.

The Exodus verse (ignoring the speech introducer) starts im-shamoa` tishma` leqol YHWH eloheyka, literally “if hearing you hear to the voice of the LORD your God”. In Deuteronomy the equivalent words are im-shamoa` tishma` beqol YHWH eloheyka, literally “if hearing you hear in the voice of the LORD your God”. Contrast Genesis 3:10 where literally Adam “heard your voice”, the same verb and noun but with no preposition “to” or “in”.

It seems that there is a subtle distinction here in the Hebrew which Derek Prince may have missed: literally “hear voice” = “hear”; literally “hear to voice” = “listen to”; literally “hear in voice” = “obey”. But the distinction is largely lost in Greek, and so in John 10:27 “my sheep hear my voice” also means “my sheep listen to me” and “my sheep obey me”. Although Prince’s exegesis is simplified, perhaps deliberately, he finds the main point: the prerequisite for God’s blessing is not just hearing God’s voice but also listening to it and obeying it – a point he could have made more explicitly from Hebrews 4:1-2.

Please hear my voice and listen to me reading the Cyber-Psalm. But don’t obey me, obey God!

No comment?

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Why is no one commenting here? There have been no comments on this blog, except from myself, for more than three days. For several days before that they had been coming in at an average of six a day, and that excludes the ones I disallowed from Susan and Brad (who use the same IP address). So why have they stopped coming in so abruptly? The number of visitors here has been steady over the last month at about 400 per day during the week, 250 at weekends. A few pingbacks from other blogs (and lots of trackback spam) have been arriving, but no comments except my own.

I hope my action in banning Susan and Brad from commenting, because they were persistently making unsubstantiated libellous accusations, has not put off anyone else from commenting. Please keep the comments coming!

Or could there be a technical problem? If anyone has tried to comment here without success, please contact me by e-mail, at the address given here.

Why does Todd Bentley inspire such hatred?

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Why does every mention of Todd Bentley, on this and other blogs, inspire such hatred? Why are there always some professing Christians who respond with such vituperative language? For example, early today I received here the following comment, which I did not approve:

Peter Kirk – You can rot in hell where you belong for being exactly what you are a self righteous hypocrite who supports liars, adulterers, thieves, deceivers such as Todd Bentley and friends

And that was all because I had asked that commenter to provide evidence to back up allegations made in a previous comment which I did not approve. While I accept that Todd has done wrong, I am not endorsing listing him among “liars, adulterers, thieves, deceivers”.

And then I found this from another commenter on another blog:

Todd Bentley is a FRAUD
Todd Bentley has committed FRAUD

What will you try to convince people of next Mr. Kirk?
That the holocaust never happened?

Again this was prompted by a request for evidence in my previous comment:

I “question the fact [your word] that Todd Bentley has committed fraud” because I have seen not one jot of evidence to suggest this. I would remind you of the biblical commands not to make accusations without two or three witnesses, and not to spread malicious gossip.

The commenter still did not provide a jot of evidence of the alleged financial fraud. Neither he nor I may appreciate Todd’s fundraising techniques, but that does not make them fraudulent. There doesn’t seem to be anything illegal in the arrangements reported by Rick Hiebert, suggested elsewhere as indicating fraud. So in the absence of any evidence to the contrary we must assume Todd’s financial affairs to be legal. But presumably in this absence of evidence the commenter thought he could prove his point by SHOUTING and associating me with holocaust deniers (see Godwin’s Law).

And these two are just a small selection of what has been directed at me personally, not to mention what has been directed at Todd, his friend, and anyone who has been seen as lukewarm in condemning his sins – not just the admitted ones but the ones alleged with no evidence.

Perhaps the explanation is in this comment from Will:

Ok.
Things are getting a but demonic here,
first off we are not to attack one another this is not lifting Jesus,

Secondly you shall not receive a rebuke against an elder unless it be in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses.this is not in an email form but personally. …

Indeed, Will, and thanks for supporting me. I’m sure the demons are having a field day with discussions like this, laughing aloud as they watch Christians tearing one another down and apart. These are the same ones who rejoiced in their victory of ending God’s work in the Lakeland revival, by the ancient means of sexual temptation. Now they want to destroy the fruit which came from it (people are still publishing testimonies of healing at Lakeland, such as this one from a rock star who was healed: “oddly enough, ever since I went to the dude Todd Bentley that everyone is saying is a healer; my back has been feeling better”). And they want to destroy any possibility of Todd repenting and being restored to ministry. So these demons stir up hatred within Christians, or within those who call themselves Christians but are actually in their control, and incite them to, among other things, write hate-filled blog posts and comments.

The biblical authors Peter and James tell us to resist the devil who seeks to devour us, and he will flee from us (James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:8-9). On this basis I have been responding to many of the negative comments about Todd with positive truth. But Paul teaches us not to give the devil a foothold in our lives (Ephesians 4:27). So I will not allow on this blog comments filled with hate, or with unsubstantiated allegations, against Todd or against anyone else including myself. Please don’t waste your time trying to post them. I will also no longer respond to such posts and comments on other blogs, unless I decide that it is important to do so in a particular case.

I pray that those who are commenting negatively about Todd will be filled anew with God’s love and compassion even for those who have fallen into sin, and will start to write and speak only positively and in accordance with God’s love.

And I pray that Todd will turn away from his inappropriate relationship, repent of all his sins, and seek reconciliation with his wife and children – and that Shonnah will be filled with love and forgiveness as they try to work this out together. I look forward to the day when Todd will be restored to a ministry which will be even more powerful than we have seen at Lakeland.

PS The Official Todd Bentley Facebook Fan Page, which I linked to here and here, seems to have disappeared from Facebook. I wonder if this is a temporary glitch, or if the administrators decided that it was too much work keeping this free of the same kinds of negative comments which I am discussing in this post. There is still an unofficial fan page, which is attracting some negative comments but is probably not being read by Todd, and his Myspace page is still available. There is no sign yet of the promised new joint statement by Todd and Rick Joyner.