There was this article in the Eugene Register-Guard this morning about how this protest group was having a hard time because they wanted to be in Salem protesting for a change in the Patriot Act but at the same time they wanted to protest President Bush who was going to be in Portland. Choices, choices.

Here I am, being negative about liberals on consecutive days. My, my, a man has a reputation to think about. I think I’ll do a glowing testimonial on NPR tomorrow.

I once went through a course on personal evangelism with some other Christian students from college, and the book we studied from broke down evangelism styles into five categories. Let’s see if I can remember them: testimonial, intellectual…that’s all I can remember. We were supposed to evaluate ourselves and see where we fit in. I thought that intellectual was my main style, not because I’m smart, but because I am interested in apologetics and that’s where I gravitate when talking to non-Christians. My church—Brownsville Mennonite—would tend to downplay apologetics a little bit, because faith is required for a person to become a Christian, and people will simply not be dragged kicking and screaming into heaven because of philosophical arguments. I agree, though I think some intellectually honest people have come fairly close. All that to say that I find it interesting that in the space of two chapters, the Bible says Paul “reasoned” (Acts 18:4) and “spake boldly…disputing and persuading” (Acts 19:8). That word “persuading,” especially, has the idea of reasoning or convincing by arguments.

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Groucho Marx.