Category Archives: Books

_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Part 1—”Belief in God is Irrational”

Posted by Caleb Coy on

_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Part 1: “Belief in God is Irrational”

Evidence
Mitch Stokes is bold.  He begins his “shot” into our heads by challenging the notion that rational beliefs must be supported by evidence, a belief known as evidentialism.  This might at first sound like a bad move, as if to say to tell Sherlock Holmes that you just have to believe you know who stole the diamond, and that’s ok.  But retrace the steps of human reasoning.  Go quiz the philosophers (and even the scientists) on this issue.  We have always used reason as long as we have used writing, and earlier.  What is evidence, though?  And how does it factor into our reasoning?  Is it just a matter of things that are there for us to find, things that obviously point the way toward true things, so long as we are rational?  Simply put,
Continue reading →

_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Intro

Posted by Caleb Coy on

My brother bought it for me as a Christmas gift, this book I had never heard of, A Shot of Faith to the Head, by Mitch Stokes.  It was an accidental discovery, for him and for me.  I didn’t know it would become a book that I would want to hold on to, one that surprisingly bolstered a faith in the very existence of God I already thought was solid enough.
Continue reading →

Mining for Ore: A Poem Inspired by The Hobbit

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Mining For Ore

In the depths, diamonds and demons:
Mine at your own risk.

Chisel and plumb and plunder
As does the prisoner
To light and breath.

Touch nothing,
But look on.

Something hums and burns beneath.

Lift up your candle and call out,
For it has broken through.
Pray that you pried loose
What you can bear to see—
Bear it up alone
And alone you will sink.

Let the eye that opens be yours,
For in the deepest of halls
No headlamp or torch can discern
Sovereigns from scales.

Continue reading →

Book Review: _The Derision of Heaven_ by Michael Whitworth

Posted by Caleb Coy on

I am a little late in reading The Derision of Heaven by Michael Whitworth.  But as many friends recommended it to me, and I went to school with this talented writer and preacher, I knew I owed it to him.  So here goes.

Whitworth’s book comes at a time when many Christians worry that their “rights” are shrinking, that a huge persecution is coming, that the privileges that we have long held are going to soon be lost, and that we just won’t know what to do about it.  The Derision of Heaven, which takes applied scholarship and shares it in a very understandable, relevant language, points to the book of Daniel as a source of answers for the questions we might be having—not questions about what will happen through the reading of “secret prophecies”, but about what is supposed to happen and what it means when it happens.  Daniel’s book is about kings—all kings—and how God laughs at derision when they refuse to acknowledge his majesty (recalling the 2nd Psalm).  America included.

Continue reading →

Part the only of my review of _Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug_

Posted by Caleb Coy on

“Benedict Cumberbatch sounds like a jaguar purring into a cello.” –anonymous

Smaug.  Smaug.  Smaug.

That’s what we’ve been anticipating.  In short, he desolated.  And so did Peter Jackson.  In a few ways.  Not all of them good.

Continue reading →

Tree Shaker: Nelson Mandela Biography Open Response for English Teachers

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Nelson Mandela passed away on December 5 of this year.  It was around this time of year a year ago that I read a biography of his, Tree Shaker, by Bill Keller.  I read this book in order to create a sample assessment for students.

Continue reading →

In case you missed the series: The KJV-Only Schism—all posts found here

Posted by Caleb Coy on

In case you missed the series on the KJV, or missed one of the entries, here is the entire series in 13 individual posts.

The KJV: Is It THE Bible?—A series on the KJV-Only Schism
Part 1: Introduction—A Plea to KJV-Only Advocates
Part 2: A Brief History of a Politically Charged Translation—Making the KJV
Part 3: Lost in Translation—Remember, it’s a translation
Part 4: Jacobean English—Antiquated Language Issues
Part 5: Linguistic Prejudice—The Myth of “High English”
Part 6: Would Any Other Translation Be Vulgar?—Koine Greek and “Low English”
Part 7: Which KJV Are We Talking About?—Different KJV Editions
Part 8: Textual Errors and Inconsistencies
Part 9: Paraphrases and Biased Renderings
Part 10: Divided Verses; Divided Minds— Book-chapter-verse-ism
Part 11: “So What Translation Do You Prefer, If Not the KJV Only?“—Other translations
Conclusion: What To Do with and about the KJV

Whitman and Twain-quoted in color

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Recently, famous photographs in black and white have been colorized using computer technology.  Now some of our favorite historical figures can be seen in “true color” for the first time.  In honor of that, I decided to create color posters of two of my favorite writers, quotes included.  They now cover my desk, covering up the hole where a previous teacher or student must have kicked the desk in anger.

Twain
twain blush

Whitman

whitman yawp

Twain looks about like you’d expect him to.  Whitman looks like a cross between Tom Bombadil and Santa Clause.