Snippets

What the Hell? Experts, including renowned New Testament scholar Darrell Bock from Dallas Theological Seminary weighs in on the reality and nature of hell in this radio segment from ABC Local radio last Sunday night. Others on the show are local theologians Rod Benson (Morling College Sydney) and Joel Hodge (ACU, Melbourne). “If there is life after death, is there a place of eternal punishment for the bad guys?” asks the show. Have a listen here.

wikipediaThe man who writes 10,000 wikipedia articles a day. Wiki “hell” and you’ll find there’s quite a bit to read, with one entry alone covering 19 different worldviews. But who writes this stuff? This guy, apparently. Responsible for a whopping 8.5% of all Wikipedia entries is Swedish man Sverker Johansson. Although, it’s not really Sverker doing the work. The bulk of his entries have been created by a “bot”. “Mr. Johansson’s program scrubs databases and other digital sources for information, and then packages it into an article. On a good day, he says his “Lsjbot” creates up to 10,000 new entries,” writes The Wall Street Journal.

Causing a bit of a stir on the internet this week was the announcement of an Australian Gospel Coalition, a local manifestation of the conservative US Gospel Coalition. We (Eternity) interviewed founding council member CS Tang about the group. But here, Melbourne Baptist pastor Murray Campbell weighs in with “Three reasons why I believe an Australian Gospel Coalition could benefit Australian Christianity and three short considerations.” He makes some good suggestions.

City AlightAlso from Australia is new Sydney-based worship band City Alight, who are making waves with their first album. A project of St Paul’s Castle Hill, City Alight‘s vision is for “biblically-rich lyrics and simple melodies”. The album, aesthetically reminscent of Hillsong, with available from this week on iTunes.

The members of City Alight are probably of the age where some of them are married, others single, and all will have thought about sex at some point. Some may have even been told that if you wait for sex within marriage, it will prove more satisfying. This article from the Her.Meneutics blog says while there may be some truth in the statement, “Promising amazing sex in exchange for purity doesn’t serve anyone. In fact, it can do a greater disservice to the one yet to be married, or in a pleasure-less marriage…We must resist the world’s model of sex as a means of personal fulfillment.” Have a read here.